Outsiders
by EgotisticalIndustries
Summary: The Quarians made their Migrant Fleet out of desperation. We made ours out of paranoia and a refusal to be stuck with only a handful of habitable planets. Canon plot rails? We don't need no stinkin' plot rails! DEAD FIC
1. Chapter 1

**IA IA disclaimer fhtagn!**

**Author's Note:** Yes, this is an alt humanity fic. However I'm also buffing the Council. If you want to know how I've buffed the Council please look at Over Analysis (one of my other stories). However due to some meddling by the Protheans this cycle will be a MAJOR Out-Of-Context-Problem for the Reapers in terms of raw firepower and how decentralized humanity is (for most cycles Reaper influence keeps the younger races from munchkining the Mass Effect to its maximum potential).

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** Codex: Human Space**

Humanity, at a glance resembles the Quarians in terms of lifestyle, traversing the galaxy in massive ships with permanent populations in the 10,000s for the smaller craft. On closer inspection, the differences become apparent. Each non military human vessel longer than 3 km is a colony in and of itself, with a sufficient industrial base to refine raw materials from asteroids, fabricate appropriate components, and produce new ships. By contrast the Quarians are stuck on decaying obsolete rust buckets without the infrastructure to manufacture new ships. This arises from the differing reasons for their nomadic lifestyle. The Quarians were forced off their home world in a hurried evacuation to escape the Geth. The Humans deliberately left their planet out of paranoia about getting hit with RKKVs, and thus avoid staying in one place for extended periods.

In terms of government, each hab ship is mostly treated as an independent sub-nation which is a part of a larger Alliance, with communications being maintained using a massive network of micro-wormhole communicators. It is common practice for every hab ship in a 20 Light Year radius to congregate in a single system for about a month every 10 years, allowing exchanges of population and technology while enabling newer ships to get connected up to the communications network aside from the initial link to their 'parent' ship. The most common governmental structure aboard a human hab ship is a semi-anarchic (there are some authorities to make sure people stay efficiently organized on whatever they're doing, but they don't have any real power) reputation economy. Capitalistic democracy, socialism, and even dictatorships are not terribly rare however. To keep whoever winds up in charge from going overboard however every human hab ship has a hard-coded VI (to get rid of it you'd need to go through such an intensive process that you might as well just build a new hab ship) that will, if it detects that its citizens are being oppressed without good reason immediately suborn the government's neural interfaces. If the government doesn't _have_ Neural Interfaces the VI will rendezvous with the nearest hab ship that meets the necessary standards and inform them of the situation, seeding and supporting a revolution on the way.

**Codex (category: human-produced technology)**

**Space-time manipulation technology**

Much of humanity's travel and communications infrastructure works by twisting space-time into exotic shapes. As gravity is a specific type of spatial distortion, and humanity are quite competent spatial architects, it makes sense that they would have the ability to manipulate gravity. This is often used the way one would expect for gravity and inertial dampeners. It's also a normal part of human _mining techniques_ of all things, with them using gravitational shear to rip chunks out of uninhabited rocky planetoids which are then refined into usable materials. fortunately the 'gravity hook' as it is often known only has a range of a few thousand kilometers. Human based gravity manipulation is incapable of violating Newton's 3rd law.

Lastly, unless it is actively being manipulated or messed with, human-produced space-time engineering is _static_ meaning it doesn't require any further energy input to continue existing. However in the case of wormholes, conduits and open-cycle gravitational accelerators (NO FREE ENERGY 4 U) using them counts as 'being messed with' and requires active manipulation to sustain.

**Conduit drive**

Humanity uses an alternate form of eezo-free FTL, which works by altering the geometry of space. When active the conduit drive contracts distances to an insane degree in the direction of travel (for a 'shitty' drive each meter inside is equal to 10,000,000 meters outside, the current-gen average is 16 times that) while also shrinking its external dimensions perpendicular to the direction of travel such that the conduit could easily slip between the quarks making up a proton without disrupting them overly much. Due to tidal effects, traversing a conduit with an internal speed higher than 3 km/s is generally a bad idea if you want to come out the other end in one piece. With the internal diameter/stability being a trade-off with distance contraction each % of a human ship's mass that is devoted to FTL drive with the current 5th generation drives is roughly equivalent to 400 c of economical cruising speed.

Worth noting is that a ship/drive does not necessarily need to go through the conduit it generates for itself. This leads to human combat doctrine best being summed up as "zap/blast 'em with teleporting lasers/bombs from light hours away then move before they can catch you". It has also led to the creation of massive 'transit devices' similar to the Relays that can slingshot hab ships around at an effective external velocity of 400,000 c (~45 light years per hour) with smaller ships going even faster. The reason for this is that each % of a ship's mass that is dedicated to FTL drives gives 400 c with 5th gen drives, and a transit device devotes 1,000% of a hab ship's mass (about 3,760 trillion tons) to FTL drives.

Compared to Mass Effect FTL, the Conduit drive is **slower**, cannot _directly _**be used as a WMD **and** uses far more energy**, but is **almost impossible to detect** and **scales up better**. Add in it not needing eezo to work and it's also **cheaper**.

**hardened space-time armor**

Technically something of a misnomer as space-time is not in fact matter and thus cannot _be_ hard, hardened space-time armor nonetheless provides the main passive defense on human spacecraft. Though the details are still unanimously classified by the human governments, HSA has been confirmed to be a tessellation of some form of exotic matter which both pins said exotic matter in place and produces a black-hole level gravitational field _away_ from itself with an extremely sharp cutoff (to keep from crushing the insides of the ship into a singularity). This results in HSA behaving pretty much like a _**completely**_ rigid solid object (density of 15 g/cubic cm) without actually being such. Worth noting is that HSA acts in an _ablative_ manner, as HSA is unpowered space-time engineering, with getting shot at _definitely_ counting as 'being messed with'. Despite disintegrating under fire HSA is still extremely durable, with destroying a single cubic meter of the stuff requiring energy equivalent to 2.8 million tons of TNT directed at it with 100% efficiency (if using unfocused weapons at least 20 megatons per cubic meter is preferable) for current generation armor. Add to that the fact that it is internally configured in such a way as to spread the damage around as much as possible, meaning that you aren't trying to wreck only the armor in a straight line through, you're also trying to wreck all the other armor in a 45 degree cone from the direction your shot was going (assuming it was a kinetic, energy weapons interact weirdly). In general, using a space-time disruption weapon tends to fail utterly, and HSA cannot be penetrated by a Conduit drive.

****Micro-wormhole communicators****

Quite bluntly, this is just a bundle of cables shoved through a small wormhole (usually about 10 cm in diameter). Worth noting is that with the proper equipment it is possible to remotely establish a direct connection by moving one end of a millimeter scale wormhole through the pre-existing network to the destination ship then inflating it to normal size, though this is limited by the availability of pre-existing connections. Worth noting is that the humans **Could **theoretically make a wormhole of arbitrary size, but each end would need to be manually moved into position, and keeping the whole thing stable is usually more trouble than it's worth. Thusly humanity mostly prefers the increased flexibility granted by a Conduit drive.

**fusion-pumped lasers**

As previously detailed, HSA is virtually immune to spatial disruption weapons and takes an excessively large amount of 'conventional' firepower to penetrate. As humanity has had at least 2 internal interstellar wars before first contact, they needed to develop weaponry capable of practically penetrating their own armor. To this end they could use ludicrously oversized Conduit-displaced nukes when within a few light minutes, but getting that close had the potential to be tricky to say the least, especially when your enemy was constantly moving around explicitly to deny you such an opportunity. To deal with this the humans developed what could best be summed up as a _reusable_ bomb pumped laser. For a unit roughly 40,000 tons in mass (what the humans consider 'point defense'), 11.5 tons of deuterium is cycled through the weapon during firing. 80% of that deuterium undergoes fusion, and a further 80% of the energy released actually ends up in the beam (2.2 gigatons worth of energy for a 40,000 ton laser). This still results in the insides of the laser being full of super-heated helium/deuterium plasma, which must be disposed of. To that end, the plasma is summarily ejected from the front end of the gun in a highly visible 'muzzle flash'. Despite this it still takes quite a long time (around a minute) for the weapon to cool down enough for a full power shot after firing. 1% power shots can, however be fired in quick succession (though there isn't normally a point to doing so). Add in the beams being given a massive shortcut to their target thanks to the conduit drive, and the humans have a highly effective (and super-luminal) weapons system. Please bear in mind that the stated mass includes a designated conduit generator.

**Neural Interface**

The humans also don't use the 'normal' holographic interface as the council races, as they instead have opted to receive and manipulate data through a brain implant. Functions of a Neural Interface include: browsing the extranet/equivalent, highly detailed VR, remotely controlling machinery like it was an extension of yourself, and transferring an organic's mind between bodies. That last one is apparently a recent addition, but the humans have refused to say where they got it.

**Category: human-built ship classes **(NOTE: these are only the most common, (private) ships under 100 meters come in a near endless number of variants)

**Scouts  
****Mass: **4,000,000 tons  
**Length:** 100 meters  
**Diameter:** 50 meters  
30% fusion reactor/torch drive  
40% fuel  
6% conduit drive (may be used to increase effective range of lasers or for FTL sensing) (effective travel speed: 2,400 c)  
8% heat management systems  
10% Hardened Space-time Armor  
1% computing/maintenance supplies  
1% sensors (effective real-time information feed range: ~0.2 light hours)  
(4) 40,000 ton Fusion-pumped lasers

Scouts are just that, scouts. Despite being able to duel a council frigate on more-or-less even terms, they are often deployed more like fighters (I.E; in huge swarms). This includes the 'pilot' actually uploading their mind _directly_ to the scout's computers, and thus it's less that they're _flying_ the scout and more that for the duration of the mission they _are_ the scout.

**Direct Combat Units  
****Mass:** 500,000,000 tons  
**Length: **800 meters  
**Diameter: **400 meters  
20% fusion reactor/torch drive  
30% fuel  
4% conduit drive (may be used to increase effective range of lasers or for FTL sensing) (effective travel speed: 1,600 c)  
6% heat management systems  
20% Hardened Space-time Armor  
15% maintenance supplies (computing is an insignificant mass usage at this point)  
1% sensors (including conduit generators explicitly for this purpose only) (effective real-time information feed range: ~2 light hours)  
Mass left over for weapons: 30,000,000 tons  
most common weapons loadout  
(90) 40,000 ton fusion-pumped lasers (point defense) (3,600,000 tons)  
(10) 800,000 ton fusion-pumped lasers (energy delivered in TNT equivalent: 44 gigatons) (total 8,000,000 tons of mass)  
(1,750) 10,000 ton nukes (yield: 0.95 teratons) (nuclear shaped charge/casaba howitzer [look it up]) (total 17,500,000 tons of mass)  
(5) railguns/conduit generators (for the nukes) (projectile mass: 10,000 tons) (muzzle velocity: 3 km/s) (effective external velocity in conduit: 40,000 c) (effective range: ~10 light hours) (total rate of fire: 10 nukes/second point blank, 1 nuke/second at maximum effective range) (mass: 900,000 tons)

Direct Combat units are the human equivalent to cruisers. They are formidable combatants and are generally capable of downing a dreadnought if they can stay at their preferred (long) engagement ranges. Unlike Scouts, Direct Combat Units are too complex for a single individual to control, however the 'crew' is still uploaded.

**Juggernauts  
****Mass: **7,550,000,000 tons  
**Length: **3 km  
**Diameter: **1 km  
25% fusion reactor/torch drive  
32% fuel  
5% conduit drive (sensors and weapons have their OWN conduit generators) (effective travel speed: 2,000 c)  
5% heat management systems  
15% Hardened Space-time Armor  
10% maintenance supplies (computing is an insignificant mass usage at this point)  
2% sensors (including conduit generators explicitly for this purpose only)(effective real-time information feed range: ~6 light hours)  
6% weapons (including conduit generators explicitly for this purpose only)  
Mass left over for weapons: 453,000,000 tons  
most common weapons loadout  
(3,000) 40,000 ton fusion-pumped lasers (point defense) (total 120,000,000 tons)  
(24) 10,000,000 ton fusion-pumped lasers (energy delivered in TNT equivalent: 550 gigatons) (total 240,000,000 tons)  
(6,000) 10,000 ton nukes (yield: 0.95 teratons) (nuclear shaped charge/casaba howitzer [look it up]) (total 60,000,000 tons of mass)  
(300) 100,000 ton nukes (yield: 10 teratons) (nuclear shaped charge/casaba howitzer [look it up]) (total 30,000,000 tons of mass)  
(15) railguns/conduit generators (for the 10,000 ton nukes) (projectile mass: 10,000 tons) (muzzle velocity: 3 km/s) (effective external velocity in conduit: 40,000 c) (effective range: ~100 light hours) (total rate of fire: 30 nukes/second point blank, 3 nukes/second at maximum effective range) (mass: 2,700,000 tons)  
(2) railguns/conduit generators (for the 100,000 ton nukes) (projectile mass: 100,000 tons) (muzzle velocity: 3 km/s) (effective external velocity in conduit: 10,000 c) (effective range: ~25 light hours) (total rate of fire: 30 nukes/second point blank, 3 nukes/second at maximum effective range) (mass: 300,000 tons)

A juggernaut is the human version of the dreadnought. Due to the (deliberate) lack of eezo-based ANYTHING in the design, this is the largest humanity can build a combat ship capable of turning well enough for their high-mobility combat doctrine. It, like the others has an uploaded crew.

**Hab Ships**

**Mass:** 3,760,000,000,000 tons

**Length: **240 km

**Diameter: **50 km

20% fusion reactor/torch drive

30% fuel

4% conduit drive (sensors and weapons have their OWN conduit generators) (effective travel speed: 1,600 c)

4% heat management systems

7% Hardened Space-time armor (it's still about 5 km thick)

14% factories, mining equipment, etc.

15% habitation space (includes computing and agriculture)

1% docking facilities

3% military fleet (112,800,000,000 tons) (usually 5 Juggernauts, 120 Direct Combat Units, and 3,760 Scouts)

sensors are an insignificant mass expenditure at this scale (effective real-time information feed range: ~6 light hours)

2% weapons

Mass left over for weapons: 75,200,000,000 tons

most common weapons loadout

(498,013) 40,000 ton fusion pumped lasers (point defense)

(3,984) 10,000,000 ton fusion-pumped lasers (energy delivered in TNT equivalent: 550 gigatons)

(996,026) 10,000 ton nukes (yield: 0.95 teratons) (nuclear shaped charge/casaba howitzer [look it up])

(49,801) 100,000 ton nukes (yield: 10 teratons) (nuclear shaped charge/casaba howitzer [look it up])

(2,490) railguns/conduit generators (for the 10,000 ton nukes) (projectile mass: 10,000 tons) (muzzle velocity: 3 km/s) (effective external velocity in conduit: 40,000 c) (effective range: ~100 light hours) (total rate of fire: 4,980 nukes/second point blank, 498 nukes/second at maximum effective range)

(332) railguns/conduit generators (for the 100,000 ton nukes) (projectile mass: 100,000 tons) (muzzle velocity: 3 km/s) (effective external velocity in conduit: 10,000 c) (effective range: ~25 light hours) (total rate of fire: 664 nukes/second point blank, 66 nukes/second at maximum effective range)

Hab Ships are THE SINGULAR reason that humanity just doesn't _care_ about garden worlds. Each Hab ship can have a population anywhere from 50,000 for newer ones that just split off their 'parent' ship to 750,000,000 for overpopulated pseudo-nations. The internal habitat takes up a full 3rd of the ship's internal volume (being 40 km in diameter and 80 km 'tall'), the 'bottom' 25% of which contains an absurdly densely packed hydroponics array, ensuring a lack of food shortages. Aside from the agriculture section, the habitat is built in layers 1 km thick each (including the 'floor) with the layers being anything from heavily developed hyper-metropolises, through suburban towns, to breathtaking 'natural' vistas. The total land area is around 75,000 square kilometers, and the habitat's interior is designed to mimic life on a planet as closely as possible right down to having EXACTLY 9.80665 m/s/s of gravity and genetic profiles for every animal that was ever on Earth at the time of the first Hab Ship being launched.


	2. Chapter 2

**IA IA disclaimer fhtagn!**

**Author's Note:** I've seen alternate first contacts with the Turians, Quarians, Batarians, Geth, Asari, and I'm pretty sure the Salarians. Maybe even the Raloi or Collectors. But I **don't** think I've ever seen one with the Virtual Aliens. The problem is that there's so little material on the Virtual Aliens that I'm going to need to (as some may say) "Make $hit up". I hope you like my attempt at representing a starfish language.

This chapter is in the style of an after-action report.

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~=Hab Ship _O'neill's dream_=~ (2234 AD/165ACC [After Close Call]) (Contact Coordinator's log)

We were in a fringe system around a type G dwarf about 2,000 light years out from Sol, and were about halfway through making a new Hab Ship when our sensor probes picked up an anomalous region of extremely hard gamma moving at 4,200 c and rapidly slowing. We were spooked, and sent word to the fleet that they might want to get ready to nuke it if it proved hostile. Just in case we died, we were also sending every byte of information we got to all the ships we had connections with. The anomalous contact slowed down to speeds below c just inside our sensor range relative to our location in a relatively dense asteroid field.

When the contact came to a stop, the sensors pinged it at about 40 kilometers long and 12 in diameter. It was obviously artificial, having a distinctly boxy shape and emitting levels of heat that inert substances just don't unless they were recently shot at a whole lot. It was decided that a Scout would be sent to within half a light second via its on-board Conduit drive and then approach the alien spacecraft at 15 km/s, stopping when it got 2,000 km away. This course of action was intended to show that we wanted to negotiate. If the scout went unmolested/un-contacted for a day by the aliens, it was to transmit a piece of music (namely the Hedgehog Song) **{****A/N: The hedgehog song is from the discworld series, which I do not own}** as direct audio.

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~=H̷͋͐ͦͩͤ̌҉̠ỷ̵̗͊̾͐̄̄ͬ͡t̨̜̦͙̹̫͔̥̟̤ͭͩ̒̒͆ͧ̆̉̀'̧̹͙͙̱̊̾͐̌́ͥ̚ġ̤̯̝̻͎̺̹̮ͭ̏͊ͯ͗͆ͪb̵̡̞̝ͪ̋̈́h̴̲͈̘̙̞͈ͣ͐ͦ civilization lifeboat=~ (Contact administrator's log)

The High administrators had determined that the system we were going to visit had an asteroid field we could mine for repair materials, though D̂͋̎͂̋ͮ̑͒͏̱̭̟͔͍̬f̺͉̺͙̠͑ͣͫ̈ͯͫ́͆̋ŗ̡̘͉̣ͨ͌̊͗̎̚y͎̳̥͔̞̔̋͆̈́͗͢b͈̠͈̦̼ͤͣͭͩ͒̔͟ thought there was something... off about the place, citing anomalous emissions. As we exited FTL, D̂͋̎͂̋ͮ̑͒͏̱̭̟͔͍̬f̺͉̺͙̠͑ͣͫ̈ͯͫ́͆̋ŗ̡̘͉̣ͨ͌̊͗̎̚y͎̳̥͔̞̔̋͆̈́͗͢b͈̠͈̦̼ͤͣͭͩ͒̔͟ was confirmed as our sensors picked up a [240 km] long behemoth of an obviously artificial object (nothing inert would EVER be radiating that much heat unless it was recently shot at), along with a smaller, colder one that was apparently under construction.

That was when an unexpected contact [100 meters] long just... blinked into existence [0.5 light-seconds] away with absolutely no warning. It didn't even have a light wake or any of the other signs of an FTL drive being used. After a little while we realized it was approaching at a fairly sedate pace of [15 km/s] giving us a bit less than 3 hours to come up with a response. Our Particle Beam Turbines render fuel concerns irrelevant, and are simple reliable technology. We therefore thought that the other craft would have similar capabilities given their undetectable FTL. This was proven false as it accelerated and course-corrected using a simple fusion torch drive.

After it came to a stop close enough to render communications delay negligible we were STILL trying to figure out what to do about it. The better part of a [day] later the debate was still raging and had turned into something you humans refer to as a "flame war". That was when we detected the transmission, it was strangely rythmic, but we simply lacked the _context _to know what it was. We decided to return the favor, though we are still confused as to why you categorized our message of "͔͎͚̗̗̲̤̽ͫ͢W̟͙̟̖͈̦̖ͭe͓ͬͥͨͮ̏ͬ̚ ̸͚̻̞͈͕̈́́̏w̝̪̭̄̎o̞͉̫̮͔̘͈ͦ̾ͯ͞u̖̳̞̻͚ͧl̔ͩ͠͏͕͔̜̮̱ͅd̶̳̖͔̰̜͖̙͊͒̂͘ ̒͗̔̅͂͡҉̳̯̫̖l̵̪̘̹ͩ͗̊͌i̡̗͓͎̱͌͡k̸̴̞̖̖̮̥̞̀̂͡ȩ͕̉̿͛͟ ̔͑̃̃ͭ̔͂̚҉̜͕̬͙̦̫̫̼̘t̯͇͍̝̪͕̘͙ͮ́̂͢ô̷͔ͣͫͪ̐̚ ̸͔͈̭̬̻̾͛ͩ̅͗ͥ̚i̩͇̘͔͇̺̙̟ͧ͗͂̊̕ͅn̙̻͔͖̦̱͉̓̃ͩ͌̄̀i̋ͭ̓̋̓̿ͧ̽̽҉̻̦̭͙̱̗̕ţ̰̝̺͍̅ͯ͋̓ͮ̇ͅị̸̯̈́̌͡a̹̯͗̿̓ͧ̎̍͘͟͝ţ̡̯̯̠̑ͨ̈̈̾̅͢e̸̹͖͕̭̪͓̜͛ͥ́ ̩͔͕͈ͨ͋̔͘n̵̺͚͖̈́͒̚͘ê̡̧͙̬̆̚͟g̖͙̠̳̲̲ͨ̑̇ͣ͢͡ơ̸̤̱̽͗̀̋͊̐ͫͮ͊͘ț̶̷͈͖̲͓͋ͯ͋͡i͖̰͍̗̳͚ͯ̇̐͆̐́a̴̯̣͕ͥ͛̍͆̇̽ͧ͞ṱ̶̣̠̩̖̞ͫ̎͗ͫͥ̑͗͛͂i̐ͦͦ̄̒҉͏̷͍̩̟ǒ̷̧̫̟̞͎̳͠n͔͇̻͖͈͎̰͉̎̈́͌̓̀̓ͫ̽̚s̱̹̜̩͂̌ͩ.̈͋̌͛͞͏̦͘"̬͖͖̉͊̿͐ͅ as Dubstep, whatever that is.

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**TRANSLATION ERROR OMAKE SLOT 1 (OPEN TO SUBMISSIONS)  
**

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**TRANSLATION ERROR OMAKE SLOT 2 (OPEN TO SUBMISSIONS)**

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**TRANSLATION ERROR OMAKE SLOT 3 (OPEN TO SUBMISSIONS)**

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Negotiatons (all parties attending via Virtual Reality)(Note, in-universe these talks went on for weeks, but they have been contracted for the Reader's benefit)

Human contact representative: Now that we've eliminated the vast majority of the glitches in our translation software, why don't we tell each other a bit about each other? We can go first.

H̷͋͐ͦͩͤ̌҉̠ỷ̵̗͊̾͐̄̄ͬ͡t̨̜̦͙̹̫͔̥̟̤ͭͩ̒̒͆ͧ̆̉̀'̧̹͙͙̱̊̾͐̌́ͥ̚ġ̤̯̝̻͎̺̹̮ͭ̏͊ͯ͗͆ͪb̵̡̞̝ͪ̋̈́h̴̲͈̘̙̞͈ͣ͐ͦ contact representative: No, we shall go first. We have only 1 ship. It was originally created to escape an impending ecological disaster as our system's sun reached its end. It had already entered its red giant phase by the time our people had achieved spaceflight, leading to our world heating up rapidly. We did not have the time to build a craft quite as well equipped as your own, so despite our abilities to effect repairs we cannot expand our holdings or efffectively upgrade our vessel. 1,000,000,000 of my people escaped, and have been traveling the galaxy for the last 8,000 years.

Human contact representative:1 question, how did you manage to cram 1,000,000,000 people in that ship? Not to mention feed them?

H̷͋͐ͦͩͤ̌҉̠ỷ̵̗͊̾͐̄̄ͬ͡t̨̜̦͙̹̫͔̥̟̤ͭͩ̒̒͆ͧ̆̉̀'̧̹͙͙̱̊̾͐̌́ͥ̚ġ̤̯̝̻͎̺̹̮ͭ̏͊ͯ͗͆ͪb̵̡̞̝ͪ̋̈́h̴̲͈̘̙̞͈ͣ͐ͦ contact representative: We have a means of transferring our minds to and from a digital medium.

Human contact representative: Understood, I do believe it's our turn to share a bit of our history. We first achieved interstellar travel 165 years ago after an object massing around 600 tons impacted one of the gas giants in our home system at 0.98 c. The results caused quite a bit of damage to our home world's biosphere, but we already had an interplanetary colony about 80% terraformed. We aren't sure if it was an accident or a deliberate attack, but we decided to take no chances. To that end we created the Hab Ships. Self-replicating starships with all the inhabitable landmass of a small continent, they've both rendered us virtually immune to RKKV attacks by virtue of moving around too much to get hit and freed us from dependence on planets. After that there were a couple internal wars we had, but we came out of those pretty well. Now that we've had our introductions Ms. ̧͉̻̗̓͊̂͛ͦ̈́ͮ͜͜ ͊̓ͥͫͯ̊ͫ̑̽҉͘͏̮̟̪͚͍̼ ̣̞̭͎̤̠͋̈̐͂̕̕ͅ ͎͚̝̠̟͖̥͐̐͑̆̿ͫ ̵̵̞̗͑̍͋͐ͧͬͨ̊ ̯̯̼̬̯ͫ̈ͯ̇̒̆̋͠ ̛̯̮̦̳̺̻̤̹̽̏͠͠ͅ ̸̣̬͓̓̐̓ͪͪͦ͋̀͝ ̨̰͒͆ͩͥ̇̋̎̚, how about we set about setting up a mutual benefit arrangement?

H̷͋͐ͦͩͤ̌҉̠ỷ̵̗͊̾͐̄̄ͬ͡t̨̜̦͙̹̫͔̥̟̤ͭͩ̒̒͆ͧ̆̉̀'̧̹͙͙̱̊̾͐̌́ͥ̚ġ̤̯̝̻͎̺̹̮ͭ̏͊ͯ͗͆ͪb̵̡̞̝ͪ̋̈́h̴̲͈̘̙̞͈ͣ͐ͦ contact representative: Such as?

Human contact representative: Simple, you want the ability to expand into a relevant galactic power by manufacturing new ships. We want that fancy uploading and AI tech you've admitted to having. To this end we can let you have that new Hab Ship we're about halfway through building.

H̷͋͐ͦͩͤ̌҉̠ỷ̵̗͊̾͐̄̄ͬ͡t̨̜̦͙̹̫͔̥̟̤ͭͩ̒̒͆ͧ̆̉̀'̧̹͙͙̱̊̾͐̌́ͥ̚ġ̤̯̝̻͎̺̹̮ͭ̏͊ͯ͗͆ͪb̵̡̞̝ͪ̋̈́h̴̲͈̘̙̞͈ͣ͐ͦ contact representative: We also require access to physical bodies, as we tire of the VR environment we have been trapped in for 8,000 years.

Human contact representative: I don't think we'll be able to find enough volunteers willing to swap bodies with you, but we should certainly be capable of re-purposing a certain line of Remotely Occupied Proxy Body android/gynoid that we originally designed for 'entertainment'.

H̷͋͐ͦͩͤ̌҉̠ỷ̵̗͊̾͐̄̄ͬ͡t̨̜̦͙̹̫͔̥̟̤ͭͩ̒̒͆ͧ̆̉̀'̧̹͙͙̱̊̾͐̌́ͥ̚ġ̤̯̝̻͎̺̹̮ͭ̏͊ͯ͗͆ͪb̵̡̞̝ͪ̋̈́h̴̲͈̘̙̞͈ͣ͐ͦ contact representative: This will be acceptable.


	3. Chapter 3

****IA IA disclaimer fhtagn!****

**Author's Note:** I've already completely derailed how first contact was supposed to go, let's push it even further off-kilter. This chapter is set 1 year after first contact, and deals with the Virtual Aliens/H̷͋͐ͦͩͤ̌҉̠ỷ̵̗͊̾͐̄̄ͬ͡t̨̜̦͙̹̫͔̥̟̤ͭͩ̒̒͆ͧ̆̉̀'̧̹͙͙̱̊̾͐̌́ͥ̚ġ̤̯̝̻͎̺̹̮ͭ̏͊ͯ͗͆ͪb̵̡̞̝ͪ̋̈́h̴̲͈̘̙̞͈ͣ͐ͦ integrating into human society, along with the reaction to uploading technology. Worth noting is that I will NOT be doing any long-term timeskips.

I am enjoying the zalgo text. Also, the chess game below is entirely rules legal.

* * *

=Hab Ship _Point of Contact_=

̴̙͖̮̹̿ͧ̎̂͟ ͪ̏҉̸̭̯̞͉͖͔ ̷̝̝̳ͮ̏͂ͮͫ́̾ ̻͑ͫͧ͞ ̵̗̔̐ͧ̀͋̈́͜ ͗҉͏̖̬̙͎̘̟̻̺ ̵̟̱̠̲͍̞̲̀̽̆̍̑ͩͅͅ ̨̌̔̈́ͥ̍͛͆͏̮̖̱̯̹ ̡̩͖̰͆ͮ͛͛͒͊͘ was a simple H̷͋͐ͦͩͤ̌҉̠ỷ̵̗͊̾͐̄̄ͬ͡t̨̜̦͙̹̫͔̥̟̤ͭͩ̒̒͆ͧ̆̉̀'̧̹͙͙̱̊̾͐̌́ͥ̚ġ̤̯̝̻͎̺̹̮ͭ̏͊ͯ͗͆ͪb̵̡̞̝ͪ̋̈́h̴̲͈̘̙̞͈ͣ͐ͦ, not really caring about complicated politics. She simply wanted to get some change in her life after 8,000 years of watching the same old view. Therefore she was not terribly put off by the fact that her new body was designed based on something the humans called a 'catgirl' and had neon pink hair to boot. Despite the anatomical differences, she was getting along fairly well with some of the humans aboard and had begun enjoying the pastime known as Chess. As of right now, ̴̙͖̮̹̿ͧ̎̂͟ ͪ̏҉̸̭̯̞͉͖͔ ̷̝̝̳ͮ̏͂ͮͫ́̾ ̻͑ͫͧ͞ ̵̗̔̐ͧ̀͋̈́͜ ͗҉͏̖̬̙͎̘̟̻̺ ̵̟̱̠̲͍̞̲̀̽̆̍̑ͩͅͅ ̨̌̔̈́ͥ̍͛͆͏̮̖̱̯̹ ̡̩͖̰͆ͮ͛͛͒͊͘ was going to meet one of her friends (a human named Jason) for a game.

As ̴̙͖̮̹̿ͧ̎̂͟ ͪ̏҉̸̭̯̞͉͖͔ ̷̝̝̳ͮ̏͂ͮͫ́̾ ̻͑ͫͧ͞ ̵̗̔̐ͧ̀͋̈́͜ ͗҉͏̖̬̙͎̘̟̻̺ ̵̟̱̠̲͍̞̲̀̽̆̍̑ͩͅͅ ̨̌̔̈́ͥ̍͛͆͏̮̖̱̯̹ ̡̩͖̰͆ͮ͛͛͒͊͘ arrived at the diner that would provide both lunch and a spot for the game, Jason was spotted at a table for 2 in the corner. ͪ̏҉̸̭̯̞͉͖͔ ̷̝̝̳ͮ̏͂ͮͫ́̾ ̻͑ͫͧ͞ ̵̗̔̐ͧ̀͋̈́͜ ͗҉͏̖̬̙͎̘̟̻̺ ̵̟̱̠̲͍̞̲̀̽̆̍̑ͩͅͅ ̨̌̔̈́ͥ̍͛͆͏̮̖̱̯̹ ̡̩͖̰͆ͮ͛͛͒͊͘ sat opposite from him, and the game began as who got which color was decided randomly. The coin was flipped, and ͪ̏҉̸̭̯̞͉͖͔ ̷̝̝̳ͮ̏͂ͮͫ́̾ ̻͑ͫͧ͞ ̵̗̔̐ͧ̀͋̈́͜ ͗҉͏̖̬̙͎̘̟̻̺ ̵̟̱̠̲͍̞̲̀̽̆̍̑ͩͅͅ ̨̌̔̈́ͥ̍͛͆͏̮̖̱̯̹ ̡̩͖̰͆ͮ͛͛͒͊͘ got white.

_White pawn (starting at A7) to A5_

"Jason, I have to admit that when I found out what type of 'entertainment' this line of gynoid was designed for I was rather upset."

_Black knight (starting at G1) to F3_

"But you seem pretty O.K. now?"

_White pawn (starting at E7) to E6_

"The intense sensory system this model has makes up for it. The tail is also prehensile."

_Black pawn (starting at G2) to G3_

"I'm glad for you ͪ̏҉̸̭̯̞͉͖͔ ̷̝̝̳ͮ̏͂ͮͫ́̾ ̻͑ͫͧ͞ ̵̗̔̐ͧ̀͋̈́͜ ͗҉͏̖̬̙͎̘̟̻̺ ̵̟̱̠̲͍̞̲̀̽̆̍̑ͩͅͅ ̨̌̔̈́ͥ̍͛͆͏̮̖̱̯̹ ̡̩͖̰͆ͮ͛͛͒͊͘. Before you H̷͋͐ͦͩͤ̌҉̠ỷ̵̗͊̾͐̄̄ͬ͡t̨̜̦͙̹̫͔̥̟̤ͭͩ̒̒͆ͧ̆̉̀'̧̹͙͙̱̊̾͐̌́ͥ̚ġ̤̯̝̻͎̺̹̮ͭ̏͊ͯ͗͆ͪb̵̡̞̝ͪ̋̈́h̴̲͈̘̙̞͈ͣ͐ͦ showed up I had a terminal case of radiation poisoning."

_White bishop (starting at F8) to B4_

"Had a terminal case? How was it terminal if they cured it?"

_Black bishop (starting at F1) to H3_

"The problem was solved using your people's uploading technology. I spent a few weeks in VR while they flash cloned a body for me and here I am."

_White rook (starting at A8) to A6_

"The user's manual for this body said it could process ingested foods and had a full sense of taste. I'm going to try it out." [1 of the cheese &amp; pickle sandwiches please]

_Black queen (starting at E1) to G1_

"Hasn't it been 8,000 years since you even last _had_ a sense of taste?"

_White rook (starting at A6) to D6_

"Yes, but I don't think that's relevant"

_Black queen (starting at G1) to G2_

"I'm just saying that you may have forgotten what actually tasting something is like."

_White rook (starting at D6) to D2, capturing pawn, check_

"I didn't think that through..."

_Black bishop (starting at C1) to D2, capturing rook_

"No, you didn't. Your sandwich is arriving by the way."

_White pawn (starting at F7) to F5_

"Ah, now to take a bite... _**THIS IS DELIGHTFUL!**_"

_Black king castles to left, ending at F1 with rook at E1_

"Um... ͪ̏҉̸̭̯̞͉͖͔ ̷̝̝̳ͮ̏͂ͮͫ́̾ ̻͑ͫͧ͞ ̵̗̔̐ͧ̀͋̈́͜ ͗҉͏̖̬̙͎̘̟̻̺ ̵̟̱̠̲͍̞̲̀̽̆̍̑ͩͅͅ ̨̌̔̈́ͥ̍͛͆͏̮̖̱̯̹ ̡̩͖̰͆ͮ͛͛͒͊͘, are you alright?"

_White pawn (starting at H7) to H6_

"sorry, I just wasn't prepared for the sensory overload, I'll be fine."

_Black bishop (starting at D2) to E3_

"Admittedly, I have been having some wonders about whether I'm really the same Jason who had terminal radiation poisoning or if I'm just a copy."

_White pawn (starting at G7) to G5_

"No, you're definitely the original."

_Black king (starting at F1) to G1_

"How do you know for sure?"

_White pawn (starting at G5) to G4_

"Uploading and downloading are not instantaneous processes. The process works by gradually shifting how much of the processing for your mind pattern is being done by each machine over the course of a few minutes until you're entirely being processed by the new machine."

_Black queen (starting at G2) to F1_

"Thank you for the reassurance."

_and the game continued..._


	4. Chapter 4

**IA IA disclaimer fhtagn!**

**Author's Note: **The H̷͋͐ͦͩͤ̌҉̠ỷ̵̗͊̾͐̄̄ͬ͡t̨̜̦͙̹̫͔̥̟̤ͭͩ̒̒͆ͧ̆̉̀'̧̹͙͙̱̊̾͐̌́ͥ̚ġ̤̯̝̻͎̺̹̮ͭ̏͊ͯ͗͆ͪb̵̡̞̝ͪ̋̈́h̴̲͈̘̙̞͈ͣ͐ͦ had 8,000 years to do research, resulting in them having insanely good theoretical research (which provides a major tech boost to the Outsiders [which is my name for the alliance of heavily-armed space nomads which already includes the humans and H̷͋͐ͦͩͤ̌҉̠ỷ̵̗͊̾͐̄̄ͬ͡t̨̜̦͙̹̫͔̥̟̤ͭͩ̒̒͆ͧ̆̉̀'̧̹͙͙̱̊̾͐̌́ͥ̚ġ̤̯̝̻͎̺̹̮ͭ̏͊ͯ͗͆ͪb̵̡̞̝ͪ̋̈́h̴̲͈̘̙̞͈ͣ͐ͦ]). However, due to the lack of resources they had a hard time putting most of it into practice, nerfing said tech boost as they've still got to actually build the stuff.

I'm breaking my own rules about timeskips here and jumping forwards a decade. During that time:

-Uploading became commonplace (with most people having a 'casual' body, a 'work' body and any number of 'fun' bodies)

-The total number of Hab ships reached about 6,400

-The H̷͋͐ͦͩͤ̌҉̠ỷ̵̗͊̾͐̄̄ͬ͡t̨̜̦͙̹̫͔̥̟̤ͭͩ̒̒͆ͧ̆̉̀'̧̹͙͙̱̊̾͐̌́ͥ̚ġ̤̯̝̻͎̺̹̮ͭ̏͊ͯ͗͆ͪb̵̡̞̝ͪ̋̈́h̴̲͈̘̙̞͈ͣ͐ͦ have pretty much become an ethnicity by virtue of cultural intermix and being massively outnumbered

-eezo was declared unfit for large-scale projects due to scarcity

-The line between synthetic and organic became a matter of personal preference more than anything else

-Jason and ̷̝̝̳ͮ̏͂ͮͫ́̾ ̻͑ͫͧ͞ ̵̗̔̐ͧ̀͋̈́͜ ͗҉͏̖̬̙͎̘̟̻̺ ̵̟̱̠̲͍̞̲̀̽̆̍̑ͩͅͅ ̨̌̔̈́ͥ̍͛͆͏̮̖̱̯̹ ̡̩͖̰͆ͮ͛͛͒͊͘. got _involved_

-A certain Hab ship's population (namely Point of Contact) decided to go visit the Serpent Nebula...

* * *

Citadel traffic control

Sulova had been _hoping_ for a normal, boring day of guiding ships to dock and other such things. These hopes were dashed as a tremendous hole in reality ripped itself open about 3 light seconds out. Even still, that was nothing compared to how a behemoth of a starship that utterly dwarfed not only the Destiny Ascension, but the entire Citadel came through over the course of about 80 seconds. Sulova's co-worker Srindok (a Krogan of all things) noticed that she was twitching. Srindok decided he'd better report this. The ship, that is.

* * *

Citadel defense HQ

Defense co-ordinator Equbia Globdus sighed as she explained to her overeager subordinates that, no they couldn't just shoot the unknowns. When they asked why, she explained that it was for 2 reasons. First, the unknown aliens had not, in fact opened hostilities so shooting them would be entirely unjustified. Second, she doubted they had any weapons that were even capable of scratching the kilometers thick armor it probably had, without even considering its point defense or other defenses.

Still, Equbia consented to the idea of having a frigate get a first contact team put together and dock (if only to get the aforementioned overeager subordinates to SHUT UP) on one condition. The condition was that it had to come in at a maximum of 300 km/s to avoid looking threatening. The frigate selected was an Asari-made model named _Nyxara_.

* * *

~=Hab ship _Point of Contact_=~

̷̝̝̳ͮ̏͂ͮͫ́̾ ̻͑ͫͧ͞ ̵̗̔̐ͧ̀͋̈́͜ ͗҉͏̖̬̙͎̘̟̻̺ ̵̟̱̠̲͍̞̲̀̽̆̍̑ͩͅͅ ̨̌̔̈́ͥ̍͛͆͏̮̖̱̯̹ ̡̩͖̰͆ͮ͛͛͒͊͘. was excited. Not only was the _Point of Contact_ living up to its name, but she was going to go meet the aliens! ̷̝̝̳ͮ̏͂ͮͫ́̾ ̻͑ͫͧ͞ ̵̗̔̐ͧ̀͋̈́͜ ͗҉͏̖̬̙͎̘̟̻̺ ̵̟̱̠̲͍̞̲̀̽̆̍̑ͩͅͅ ̨̌̔̈́ͥ̍͛͆͏̮̖̱̯̹ ̡̩͖̰͆ͮ͛͛͒͊͘. loaded to one of her spare bodies (another of the 'catgirl' type models she'd grown fond of) she had stored up near the docking area and waited. Watching through the security cameras the dock managers had installed, ̷̝̝̳ͮ̏͂ͮͫ́̾ ̻͑ͫͧ͞ ̵̗̔̐ͧ̀͋̈́͜ ͗҉͏̖̬̙͎̘̟̻̺ ̵̟̱̠̲͍̞̲̀̽̆̍̑ͩͅͅ ̨̌̔̈́ͥ̍͛͆͏̮̖̱̯̹ ̡̩͖̰͆ͮ͛͛͒͊͘.'s mood soured as she realized that the aliens were armed.

"Well, ͕̼̝̪̞̮̮͋ͦͬͨ͒͛ͦ͐ ̻̘̞̬̗̮̦̬̈́́͜͡ ̷̣̙̺̫̗̰̬̿̅̀ͤͧ̍̈ ͙͈̱̬̥̮̅̄̏ ̧̔̌ͯ̉̎̀ͤ͂́҉̰̳͔̦̼̮̠͖ ͍͔̦̪͚͔̿̈́ ̛̦̣̠ͬ͊ͫ͂̇̍ ̢̘͓̠͚̞̫̐̂͐̒̍̎ͅͅ ͐ͧ̔ͮ̏͏͚̺̻͙͉̥̺." generally summed up ̷̝̝̳ͮ̏͂ͮͫ́̾ ̻͑ͫͧ͞ ̵̗̔̐ͧ̀͋̈́͜ ͗҉͏̖̬̙͎̘̟̻̺ ̵̟̱̠̲͍̞̲̀̽̆̍̑ͩͅͅ ̨̌̔̈́ͥ̍͛͆͏̮̖̱̯̹ ̡̩͖̰͆ͮ͛͛͒͊͘.'s reaction. Still, she wanted to meet the aliens. Taking a few minutes, ̷̝̝̳ͮ̏͂ͮͫ́̾ ̻͑ͫͧ͞ ̵̗̔̐ͧ̀͋̈́͜ ͗҉͏̖̬̙͎̘̟̻̺ ̵̟̱̠̲͍̞̲̀̽̆̍̑ͩͅͅ ̨̌̔̈́ͥ̍͛͆͏̮̖̱̯̹ ̡̩͖̰͆ͮ͛͛͒͊͘. moved her mind into her normal body back on hab deck 13 but continued remote-controlling her extra up near the docking area. Precautions taken, ̷̝̝̳ͮ̏͂ͮͫ́̾ ̻͑ͫͧ͞ ̵̗̔̐ͧ̀͋̈́͜ ͗҉͏̖̬̙͎̘̟̻̺ ̵̟̱̠̲͍̞̲̀̽̆̍̑ͩͅͅ ̨̌̔̈́ͥ̍͛͆͏̮̖̱̯̹ ̡̩͖̰͆ͮ͛͛͒͊͘. exposed herself. Somewhat surprisingly, she did not get her proxy riddled with bullets. This was because of a few things, namely 1: she did not expose herself in a threatening manner, 2: ̷̝̝̳ͮ̏͂ͮͫ́̾ ̻͑ͫͧ͞ ̵̗̔̐ͧ̀͋̈́͜ ͗҉͏̖̬̙͎̘̟̻̺ ̵̟̱̠̲͍̞̲̀̽̆̍̑ͩͅͅ ̨̌̔̈́ͥ̍͛͆͏̮̖̱̯̹ ̡̩͖̰͆ͮ͛͛͒͊͘. lacked any _obvious_ weapons or armor and therefore had a possibility of being a civilian, and (most importantly) 3: The bodyguards had been explicitly ordered not to fire unless the aliens initiated hostilities.

And that was where it all fell apart, as a half-dozen random idiots wearing organic human-type bodies showed up (how they'd even gotten into that area in their inebriated state, ̷̝̝̳ͮ̏͂ͮͫ́̾ ̻͑ͫͧ͞ ̵̗̔̐ͧ̀͋̈́͜ ͗҉͏̖̬̙͎̘̟̻̺ ̵̟̱̠̲͍̞̲̀̽̆̍̑ͩͅͅ ̨̌̔̈́ͥ̍͛͆͏̮̖̱̯̹ ̡̩͖̰͆ͮ͛͛͒͊͘. had no idea). Even as ̷̝̝̳ͮ̏͂ͮͫ́̾ ̻͑ͫͧ͞ ̵̗̔̐ͧ̀͋̈́͜ ͗҉͏̖̬̙͎̘̟̻̺ ̵̟̱̠̲͍̞̲̀̽̆̍̑ͩͅͅ ̨̌̔̈́ͥ̍͛͆͏̮̖̱̯̹ ̡̩͖̰͆ͮ͛͛͒͊͘. realized what was about to happen, the foremost one was already heaving back to lob the molotov cocktail. By the time ̷̝̝̳ͮ̏͂ͮͫ́̾ ̻͑ͫͧ͞ ̵̗̔̐ͧ̀͋̈́͜ ͗҉͏̖̬̙͎̘̟̻̺ ̵̟̱̠̲͍̞̲̀̽̆̍̑ͩͅͅ ̨̌̔̈́ͥ̍͛͆͏̮̖̱̯̹ ̡̩͖̰͆ͮ͛͛͒͊͘. used her clearance as a first contact representative to freeze the idiot's muscles, the bottle was already flying through the air. Acting to salvage what she could from a horrible situation, ̷̝̝̳ͮ̏͂ͮͫ́̾ ̻͑ͫͧ͞ ̵̗̔̐ͧ̀͋̈́͜ ͗҉͏̖̬̙͎̘̟̻̺ ̵̟̱̠̲͍̞̲̀̽̆̍̑ͩͅͅ ̨̌̔̈́ͥ̍͛͆͏̮̖̱̯̹ ̡̩͖̰͆ͮ͛͛͒͊͘. charged over to the group of idiots and quite loudly started berating them in the hopes of making it intensely clear that this would **not** be tolerated. And, THAT is when ̷̝̝̳ͮ̏͂ͮͫ́̾ ̻͑ͫͧ͞ ̵̗̔̐ͧ̀͋̈́͜ ͗҉͏̖̬̙͎̘̟̻̺ ̵̟̱̠̲͍̞̲̀̽̆̍̑ͩͅͅ ̨̌̔̈́ͥ̍͛͆͏̮̖̱̯̹ ̡̩͖̰͆ͮ͛͛͒͊͘.'s currently remote controlled body got riddled with bullets, along with the soon-to-be-deceased idiots.

===POV switch: citadel expedition===

The expedition party had one ambassador from each of the Council races, and a total of 24 bodyguards. Of course, in the interests of 'political correctness' there just _had_ to be at least 1 of EVERY known race that was willing to come (and even then there were rumors of an attempt to shove a Keeper or 2 into the frigate). If "an Asari, Drell, Elcor, Hanar, Salarian, Turian, Volus, Batarian, Krogan and a Quarian walked into an unknown and potentially hostile spacecraft" sounds like the beginning of a pitiful, convoluted and extremely painful joke, that's because it _is_. Still, that's the situation Ambassador Faeld Dantiros of the Asari Republics found herself in.

As they progressed, the regular presence of black globes on the ceiling came to the attention of the contact force, and their tech specialist Mef'Taedal nar Wihok's opinion was that they were likely security cameras. As they turned the corner, they spotted an alien with either a bizarre piece of headgear or PINK FUR growing out of (at least they THOUGHT it was a her) head. The hat theory was rapidly dis-proven as 'she' pivoted the pointed ears atop her head at them. Aside from the pink-furred top-of-head, the location of the ears, and the similarly pink-furred prehensile tail (they knew it was prehensile since 'she' was using it to hold some kind of treat on a stick) the alien looked almost disturbingly like an Asari.

At that point a group of 6 other aliens walked around the corner, they were staggering sort of like how a Turian reacts to alcohol, so they were probably drunk. This theory was further supported by the bottle one of them was carrying, though they were unsure why it had a rag instead of a conventional cap. At this point the first alien they saw realized they were looking _behind_ 'her' rather than _at_ 'her'. 'She' turned around just in time to see one of the hooligans setting light to the rag in the bottle. The bottle was thrown, even as the pink-furred alien charged towards them, causing the band of hooligans to freeze up.

As the bottle hit and shattered, it sprayed flaming oil in a large area which started releasing horrid clouds of thick, black smoke. The bodyguards were (mostly) unharmed, encased as they were in aerogel-layered environmentally sealed hardsuits. There were loud noises reminiscent of someone swearing or berating an incompetent subordinate. Meanwhile the Salarian ambassador inhaled quite thoroughly unhealthy amounts of probably-toxic smoke. This was all the excuse the most trigger happy member of the expedition (not the Krogan, the Volus) needed to open fire with the **light autocannon** she had insisted on bringing.


	5. Chapter 5

**IA IA disclaimer fhtagn!**

**Author's Note:** I think it's fairly safe to say that at the moment the 1st contact situation is FUBAR. Now let's try to salvage the situation.

I've also always kind of wondered how an Asari meld would interact with someone who had an internet connection directly linked to their brain. More specifically an internet connection SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED to not just be an immersive experience, but fully capable of MOVING SOMEONE'S MIND OUT OF THEIR MEAT-BRAIN AND INTO SAID NETWORK.

* * *

The expedition from the citadel had, in about 30 seconds gone from "potentially peaceful 1st contact" mode to "get out NOW and shoot anything in the way" mode. This attitude had not been helped by the discovery that the pink-furred alien was a synthetic. As they stood over its sparking wreckage, they noticed that the 6 (now deceased) drunkards were definitely organic.

It was at this point that they heard a sound from around a corner, reminiscent of someone thumping their hand on a metallic door to let people know they were there. Cautiously, the expedition looked around the corner. The alien they saw looked disturbingly like the pink-furred synthetic, though it had an ear structure reminiscent of the 6 drunkards, brown fur, and lacked a tail. Though the alien stood ramrod straight, and had empty hands, the Volus still opened fire. The alien had apparently been anticipating this and managed to duck inside a room off to the side in time to avoid getting killed. Still, the Volus had inadvertently proven that 'she' was organic by clipping 'her' leg and causing a spray of blood to fly into the air.

As the group followed 'her' into what turned out to be a closet full of de-activated janitor bots, and found 'her' sitting on the floor hastily applying a tourniquet to 'her' injured leg. Thinking quickly, 4 of the other bodyguards tackled the Volus and wrestled the autocannon away from her before she could open fire. Wanting to get things over with, Ambassador Faeld waited until the tourniquet was on properly, and initiated a meld.

Getting language taken care of was almost instantaneous, all things considered. Then Faeld dived into cultural norms and history. It was... confusing to say the least. From what she was getting, these aliens were originally 2 entirely unrelated species that had _merged_ of all things. Even more nonsensically the aliens were all at least partially synthetic, which Faeld mentally scoffed at. Then Faeld found _something_ at the back of the alien's mind, sort of like a mental... thread or tube or something. Following it, Faeld felt mentally constricted for a brief moment before emerging into a much larger, distinct mind-space.

Exploring this larger mind-space Faeld found all sorts of things including archives of all sorts. Digging around, she found text speaking of improbable, impossible or just plain unlikely things. A bit more digging and she found a... video hosting service of all things. It was at this point that Faeld realized that the alien had what effectively amounted to an Extranet router connected directly to her brain. Then Faeld realized that she had absolutely NO idea which way she had come from information wise, and couldn't pull out by just trying to end the meld. A term from the alien, or rather H̷͋͐ͦͩͤ̌҉̠ỷ̵̗͊̾͐̄̄ͬ͡t̨̜̦͙̹̫͔̥̟̤ͭͩ̒̒͆ͧ̆̉̀'̧̹͙͙̱̊̾͐̌́ͥ̚ġ̤̯̝̻͎̺̹̮ͭ̏͊ͯ͗͆ͪb̵̡̞̝ͪ̋̈́h̴̲͈̘̙̞͈ͣ͐ͦ language came to mind, namely "well ͕̼̝̪̞̮̮͋ͦͬͨ͒͛ͦ͐ ̻̘̞̬̗̮̦̬̈́́͜͡ ̷̣̙̺̫̗̰̬̿̅̀ͤͧ̍̈ ͙͈̱̬̥̮̅̄̏ ̧̔̌ͯ̉̎̀ͤ͂́҉̰̳͔̦̼̮̠͖ ͍͔̦̪͚͔̿̈́ ̛̦̣̠ͬ͊ͫ͂̇̍ ̢̘͓̠͚̞̫̐̂͐̒̍̎ͅͅ ͐ͧ̔ͮ̏͏͚̺̻͙͉̥̺."

Faeld, rather determined not to be stuck in here FOREVER quickly started looking for the search function, before running into a presently disembodied human. And then, the Human _spoke._

_"Hello, what are you doing here, Asari?"_

_"I'm... initiating first contact. And how did you know what my species was named?"_

_"When you SUBORN SOMEONE'S NEURAL INTERFACE and ACCIDENTALLY UPLOAD YOURSELF these things tend to be noticed."_

_"I'd kind of like to get back to my body now."_

_"Heh, you're just lucky that ̷̝̝̳ͮ̏͂ͮͫ́̾ ̻͑ͫͧ͞ ̵̗̔̐ͧ̀͋̈́͜ ͗҉͏̖̬̙͎̘̟̻̺ ̵̟̱̠̲͍̞̲̀̽̆̍̑ͩͅͅ ̨̌̔̈́ͥ̍͛͆͏̮̖̱̯̹ ̡̩͖̰͆ͮ͛͛͒͊͘. was remote-controlling that body you got in through."_

_"What would have happened otherwise?"_

_"Our digital security would have outright deleted you."_

_"Oh, you must be joking, right?"_

_"No, I'm completely serious."_

_"That's... actually quite terrifying."_

_"True, but it beats seeing someone get their code corrupted."_

_"I... don't feel comfortable here. How do I leave?"_

_"I'll help if only to avoid getting my species ganged up on by the entire Council, you wouldn't be the first new infomorph who's gotten a little lost. Here's the 'where'd I put my body' app for your perusal."_

_"Ok, I'm leaving now."_

_"One last thing."_

_"what?"_

_"Don't you DARE let the Council turn their AI hate on us."_

Faeld quickly skimmed the contents of the app, and finding that it only had a single control (labelled _go_) used it. Opening The eyes She'd almost forgotten she could use Faeld quickly realized that something was very, very wrong. Namely she was in the once remote-controlled body she'd accidentaly entered the network through. Faeld realized why when she noticed her body, apparently braindead, lying on a gurney next to her. "well ͕̼̝̪̞̮̮͋ͦͬͨ͒͛ͦ͐ ̻̘̞̬̗̮̦̬̈́́͜͡ ̷̣̙̺̫̗̰̬̿̅̀ͤͧ̍̈ ͙͈̱̬̥̮̅̄̏ ̧̔̌ͯ̉̎̀ͤ͂́҉̰̳͔̦̼̮̠͖ ͍͔̦̪͚͔̿̈́ ̛̦̣̠ͬ͊ͫ͂̇̍ ̢̘͓̠͚̞̫̐̂͐̒̍̎ͅͅ ͐ͧ̔ͮ̏͏͚̺̻͙͉̥̺." indeed.

Faeld quickly flicked through her options. Trying to convince the rest of the contact team that she actually was Faeld after a mind-swap would likely end disastrously. Saying that Faeld got lost inside the network would also end badly. However, stating that 'her' species could _also_ meld with certain... difficulties and the problem could likely be remedied using a specific medical machine common aboard the ship had a chance of working. Taking charge, Faeld immediately set upon that course of action.

-POV switch: THE REST of the Citadel contact team-

Melds, did not normally last upwards of 20 minutes. The team had finally managed to find what appeared to be a medical room aboard the ship and had moved the pair of apparently brain-dead entities onto separate gurneys. Everyone was shocked as the alien woke up, despite being apparently braindead mere moments before and started speaking in _perfect Thessian _(at least that bit of the meld worked apparently).

"Your compatriot's mind meld worked, and mind melds are nothing new to my species, but our version occasionally induces a particular form of normally permanent seizure. Every member of my people has a piece of cybernetics intended to fix said seizures."

The Salarian ambassador was in no condition to talk, having been hauled back to the ship to get her lungs scrubbed, but her aide was skeptical, asking "and how does this assist Ambassador Faeld?"

"That (pointing to a machine in the corner) is an automatic machine capable of integrating said cybernetics into an organic's nervous system. If it fails to work, there is nothing lost. If it works, Faeld will be restored momentarily."

Though there was some grumbling, eventually they consented and pushed the (anti-gravity equipped) gurney into the auto-surgeon. After about 5 minutes there was a discreet behind-the-scenes swapping of minds with Faeld getting back into her birth-body and ̷̝̝̳ͮ̏͂ͮͫ́̾ ̻͑ͫͧ͞ ̵̗̔̐ͧ̀͋̈́͜ ͗҉͏̖̬̙͎̘̟̻̺ ̵̟̱̠̲͍̞̲̀̽̆̍̑ͩͅͅ ̨̌̔̈́ͥ̍͛͆͏̮̖̱̯̹ ̡̩͖̰͆ͮ͛͛͒͊͘. getting back at the controls for the body Faeld had spent the last few minutes stuck in. As Faeld climbed out of the auto-surgeon with her brand new neural interface, she said "Now that I can safely end that charade without getting SHOT TO PIECES (glaring at the Volus), let me and ̷̝̝̳ͮ̏͂ͮͫ́̾ ̻͑ͫͧ͞ ̵̗̔̐ͧ̀͋̈́͜ ͗҉͏̖̬̙͎̘̟̻̺ ̵̟̱̠̲͍̞̲̀̽̆̍̑ͩͅͅ ̨̌̔̈́ͥ̍͛͆͏̮̖̱̯̹ ̡̩͖̰͆ͮ͛͛͒͊͘. tell you what REALLY happened."


	6. Chapter 6

**IA IA disclaimer fhtagn!**

**Author's Note: **Some of you have been complaining about how short my chapters are, if my chapters were longer I wouldn't be able to keep up this absolutely insane update schedule.

Some of you have been complaining about my characters seeming a bit off, that's a side effect of me forgetting to factor emotions into my mental simulations of my characters.

The 'starfish language' isn't actually unpronounceable by the way, It's just got a lot of subtle nuances stacked on top of each other.

I'm sick of 1st contact. There will be no more of it in this story besides Reapers (Quarians already count as 'contacted').

At this point, I will split the story's POV. 1 part goes to the Outsiders, another goes to the Council, and the last bit of POV will go to the Terminus, who don't get a turn this chapter.

Also, I'm giving you readers some influence. You can't control any of the factions in their entirety, but you **can** control the _Point of Contact_. A thingy you need to know is that while Hab ships are very tough nuts to crack and can blow away Sovereign-type Reapers by the thousand simply due to the ludicrous amounts of raw firepower they can crank out _per second_ from _light hours_ away, they are not invincible and the _Point of Contact_ CAN get destroyed if you do something stupid with it.

There's some biotic shenanigans in this chapter that don't show up in the games, if you want to know what happened, see my other story Over Analysis (chapter 4)

* * *

**Current date: **

* * *

**Turn: 1 (_Point of Contact_)| Length: 1 year | POV characters: Jason, ̷̝̝̳ͮ̏͂ͮͫ́̾ ̻͑ͫͧ͞ ̵̗̔̐ͧ̀͋̈́͜ ͗҉͏̖̬̙͎̘̟̻̺ ̵̟̱̠̲͍̞̲̀̽̆̍̑ͩͅͅ ̨̌̔̈́ͥ̍͛͆͏̮̖̱̯̹ ̡̩͖̰͆ͮ͛͛͒͊͘.**

After the _Point of Contact_ had, well, contacted the Citadel Council, several things had happened. A raging debate had sparked as to whether the 'synthetics' were legitimately benevolent or simply trying to bait the 'puny organics' into a trap. Negotiations had gotten bogged down and taken months thanks to the Council stalling for time in an attempt to figure out how to deal with such an outside-context problem. Faeld had been abducted and experimented on by agents of the shadow broker, probably because she both had a neural interface and was easier to grab than someone who stayed on a Hab ship. And roughly 12,000 immigrants had come aboard, which led to the problem of needing to dedicate part of the agriculture section to crops of the opposing chirality.

Still, Jason and ̷̝̝̳ͮ̏͂ͮͫ́̾ ̻͑ͫͧ͞ ̵̗̔̐ͧ̀͋̈́͜ ͗҉͏̖̬̙͎̘̟̻̺ ̵̟̱̠̲͍̞̲̀̽̆̍̑ͩͅͅ ̨̌̔̈́ͥ̍͛͆͏̮̖̱̯̹ ̡̩͖̰͆ͮ͛͛͒͊͘. were hanging on, and were helping some of the immigrants to integrate (despite 19 of them being confirmed STG agents, and another 17 working for the shadow broker, with at least 1 Salarian lady named Tibaw Wemori working for both). It was at this point that a vote came to Jason's attention on the neural interface. The vote was simply asking what the _Point of Contact_ should do next. The options were as follows:  
[] wreck the Batarian Hegemony's slave-economy  
[] give the Quarians some REAL 'liveships'  
[] build a transit device between the Citadel and Outsider space  
[] Step 1: talk to Geth, Step 2: ?, Step 3: TOURISM!  
[] clean up the Terminus systems  
[] search for Prothean artifacts  
[] Add your own

After a few minutes of thinking Jason and ̷̝̝̳ͮ̏͂ͮͫ́̾ ̻͑ͫͧ͞ ̵̗̔̐ͧ̀͋̈́͜ ͗҉͏̖̬̙͎̘̟̻̺ ̵̟̱̠̲͍̞̲̀̽̆̍̑ͩͅͅ ̨̌̔̈́ͥ̍͛͆͏̮̖̱̯̹ ̡̩͖̰͆ͮ͛͛͒͊͘. decided that they would vote for

[] give the Quarians some REAL 'liveships'

and

[] wreck the Batarian Hegemony's slave-economy

respectively, as they felt that those would do the most good for the galaxy in general.

(VOTES ARE OPEN!)

* * *

**Turn: 1 (Outsiders at large) | Length: 1 year | POV characters: the crew of the militarized Hab ship** _**Normandy,**_**Javik**

Most Hab ships were generally left alone to do their own thing wherever they decided to go. There was at least 1 confirmed case that had used a convoluted setup involving a transit device and a wormhole to go intergalactic. They were still in contact, though it was information only. This practice did not extend to the militarized Hab ships, which stayed in a rigid military organization. _Normandy_ was one such hab ship, which was currently tasked with gathering intelligence about the Protheans, what caused them to vanish, and if it could happen again.

Currently, The _Normandy_ was investigating a previously-ignored Garden world only a few thousand light years from sol. The world had tentatively been named Eden Prime, and was suspected to have previously been part of the Prothean Empire. This suspicion demanded an in-depth analysis, more specifically about 10 km deep. The Council would not appreciate a Garden world's crust being ripped off and meticulously sifted through, but time was of the essence. The _Normandy _settled into a 2,000 km polar orbit, and engaged its gravity hook. The hastily refitted device would normally have violently pulverized the material being transported to make processing easier, but this version was a lot gentler, smoothly lifting off a ribbon of land 40 km wide and 200 meters deep.

The 'expedited archaeology' bore fruit after the 1st 200 meters of land had been lifted off roughly a third of the planet, with excess matter being refined into fuel in the case of water, or added to the raw materials 'bin' for anything else. Specifically, the 'fruit' was a Prothean Beacon, which was immediately shuffled off to the xeno-cryptography department. At 600 meters deep, a bunker complex was lifted into orbit, complete with a few still active stasis pods. The stasis pods were sent to medical, and the rest to xenoarchaeology.

In a small part of one of the _Normandy_'s many medical/body repair centers, a certain Prothean was being looked over in his tube (not that he knew this). The problem was that they didn't want to revive him until they could be sure he wouldn't attack, but the many xenopsychologists and physicians looking him over couldn't be sure he wouldn't attack until they revived him. Yes, the Prothean had no firearms available, but he(?) also had eezo inclusions in his body, marking him as a biotic. Eventually, a compromise was proposed. The room the Prothean would awaken in would be reinforced with 5 centimeters of Hardened Space-time armor, and all bodies present would be remote operated.

|=[POV SWITCH]=|

Javik woke up. This was somewhat surprising, as he'd assumed that the Reapers would have simply killed him during hibernation. However, noticing that the room he was in was most definitely NOT the one he went into stasis in, Javik immediately went into "ohshitI'mabouttobeIndoctrinatedtakeasmanyofthemwithmeaspossible" mode. As such, he rapidly ducked out of his stasis pod while looking around the room wildly. 4 aliens of an unknown species were quickly sighted. They were quickly dispatched by Javik using his biotics to make their body heat suddenly hit several thousand degrees. This worked about as well as Javik hoped, resulting in the unknowns going up in fiery gore-splosions as expected.

With the room now coated in a thin red layer of boiling gore, Javik now started to panic as he realized the room was completely empty with no obvious exits. This was when the people who had woken him up released the restraining drones they had readied for this eventuality. In total, Javik managed to destroy 58 of the machines meant to subdue him before fading into unconsciousness, and even then it was later ascertained that he had collapsed from exhaustion. Still, the plan to upload the Prothean went off more or less as planned.

-40 minutes later-

Javik woke up again, much to his surprise. Also to his surprise was that he was sitting in a chair across from one of the aliens from earlier without any obvious form of restraint. Purely as a knee-jerk reaction, Javik got up from the chair while attempting to use his biotics to kill the alien across from him. Much to Javik's surprise, this failed to have useful results. Even more surprising was that when the alien said "Yeah, this simspace isn't set up to handle biotics, or violence in general for that matter." and Javik actually understood it. Javik, deciding that since he wouldn't be easily able to escape, he might as well attempt to get actionable intelligence out of these aliens.

The first question Javik asked was "what motive did you have to revive me?"

This got an answer of "To put it quite bluntly, we're paranoid about what happened to your empire being a reoccurring phenomenon, and we needed intelligence about what happened so we can plan appropriate countermeasures."

"Yes, it is most definitely a reoccurring phenomenon. More specifically it is the work of a machine race possibly billions of years old. I cannot assist in the planning of countermeasures without knowing your assets and the situation at large."

"certainly, 1 year ago contact was made with the Citadel council though there isn't much in the way of trade yet. We are currently aboard a 240 kilometer long militarized Hab Ship with a permanent population of around 100,000,000 with over 6,000 of said ships, though only 1,600 are militarized. Our hab ships are fully self-replicating over a period of 2 years with no eezo required, and their main reason for existence is that we're paranoid about getting attacked if we stay in one place for an extended period."

Javik simply expressed something reminiscent of laughter before stating "You are in quite possibly the best possible position for dealing with the Reapers. Your decentralized, nomadic lifestyle which absolutely has to be 'off the grid' relative to the Relays due to not fitting through them means the Reapers will have an almost impossible task in even finding you. If this ship is as heavily armed as I would expect it is probably capable of destroying large amounts of Reapers in quick succession while suffering negligible damage to itself, and your minimal exposure to the relays and citadel means you haven't had the time to be sucked into the Reaper's trap."

* * *

**Turn: 1 (Citadel Council) | Length: 1 year | POV characters: Saren and Desolas Arterius**

Saren was currently with his brother Desolas in a diner (closest English translation) on Oma Ker getting lunch. The door and windows were trimmed with well-varnished purple Ertian wood, which could be rather expensive to get nowadays. the bar filled a quarter of the establishment's forwards area and had a foot rail made of steel. In the front-left corner there were a few antique arcade machines (mostly shooters, though there was also a tetris-like game of Salarian origin). Along the rest of the front wall were booths designed to seat 4. Above the door was also an absolutely ANCIENT bronze clock that still used actual gears and springs, rumor had it that the clock had been in the owner's family for over 2,000 years.

Saren had ordered an Old Country Style xemna steak, while Desolas had gone for some fried vegetable strips in a sweet and sour sauce. Personally, Desolas was wondering how _anyone_ could stand to eat something that spicy, let alone _like_ it. Still, they were brothers, and a conversation quickly started up. The topic was of course the 1st contact that had recently occurred. Saren started it off.

"Quite bluntly, I don't trust those synthetics that showed up near the Citadel."

"For what it's worth, they aren't synthetic _all_ the time. Anyway I don't trust them much either, but at least they haven't initiated blatant hostilities."

"That's true, though for all we know it could just be a trap."

"Indeed."

At this point, the brother's meals arrived, and the conversation slowed greatly. That the waitress happened to be a Quarian attracted no great attention.

"Quite bluntly, I'm surprised that 1st contact was still relatively peaceful given that 7 of their own got gunned down."

"You seem to be forgetting that with uploading, spare bodies, and a black box life support system around the brain, none of them _stayed_ dead."

"Speaking of which, how do they actually know that an upload is the same person?"

"Apparently the mind transfer is a gradual process, which the person doing so is fully conscious throughout."

"Still, I don't think I'd rely on that to make sure it's actually me on the other end of the process."

"I'm inclined to agree."

This conversation continued for about 20 minutes, during which meals were eaten, bills paid, and the other waitress unsucessfully hit on. As Saren and Desolas left the establishment, something caught there eye. Or, rather, someone. Saren was the first to speak, saying "Spirits, what is one of _them_ doing _here_ so quickly." Referring to the human who was sitting on a bench across the street.


	7. Chapter 7

**IA IA disclaimer fhtagn!**

**Author's Note:** I did some calculations based on the fact that Hab ships (or at least the _Point of Contact_) can only travel at ~5 light years/day (takes 65 years to cross the galaxy) compared to an Over Analysis-verse Relay clocking in at 3 light years per second (takes 11 hours to cross the galaxy). As Hab ships just don't _fit_ through the Relays, the only ways to get over to where the Quarians are, is to either send a 'small' (about 3 km long) auxiliary craft gallivanting all over the Relay network, or to do that thing with wormholes that one Hab ship used to go intergalactic. Due to it taking a lot less resources and prep time I'm going with option 1.

Elaborating on the wormhole option, How much distance compression you can give a conduit is determined by 2 major things. namely; 1: how wide the conduit needs to be internally, and 2: how much machinery is being used to keep the conduit stable. A wormhole can be almost arbitrarily small while transiting a conduit, thus increasing the distance compression by several orders of magnitude. Then you just need to inflate the wormhole so your ship can go through it (possibly taking 20 seconds for military-grade drives) and you've got yourself a much faster 'jump' drive.

* * *

**Turn: 2 (_Point of Contact_)| Time to arrival of Reapers: ~ 26 years | POV characters: ̷̝̝̳ͮ̏͂ͮͫ́̾ ̻͑ͫͧ͞ ̵̗̔̐ͧ̀͋̈́͜ ͗҉͏̖̬̙͎̘̟̻̺ ̵̟̱̠̲͍̞̲̀̽̆̍̑ͩͅͅ ̨̌̔̈́ͥ̍͛͆͏̮̖̱̯̹ ̡̩͖̰͆ͮ͛͛͒͊͘., Admiral Rael'Zorah vas Rayya**

Roughly 8 months ago, _Point of Contact_ had fabricated a 5 kilometer long vessel named _Long Reach_ for the purposes of contacting the Migrant Fleet. This was trickier than would normally be assumed, as the FTL transmitter network most of the galaxy used to transmit information (or target and vaporize potentially hostile ships) could have a communications delay of up to 4 weeks depending on distance, and was not typically useful beyond 50 light years of range. Add to that the fact relay travel was not truly instantaneous, and tracking down the migrant fleet had been an absolute nightmare. Eventually, the _Point of Contact_ had resorted to fabricating over 30,000 automated probes in direct wormhole communications with the _Point of Contact_ to explore every bit of the Relay network, Citadel law be damned.

This had resulted in 3 first contacts, one of which was well on their way to building a matrioshka brain in their home system and had uploaded 98% of their population. Only one of the contacts had turned violent, and that was only because of the ever-present communications glitches that accompany a first contact. Still, large-scale wars had been averted for the most part, and a probe had managed to be in a system in the Styx Theta cluster just as the migrant fleet was arriving. It was previously mentioned that the probes were in constant wormhole communication with the _Point of Contact_. An additional function of this was that they also possessed the ability to inflate said wormhole to 1.2 kilometers in diameter and stabilize it enough to travel through. This allowed the _Long Reach_ to reach the migrant fleet in just under 3 minutes (1 minute to inflate wormhole, 2 minutes of in-system Conduit travel).

̷̝̝̳ͮ̏͂ͮͫ́̾ ̻͑ͫͧ͞ ̵̗̔̐ͧ̀͋̈́͜ ͗҉͏̖̬̙͎̘̟̻̺ ̵̟̱̠̲͍̞̲̀̽̆̍̑ͩͅͅ ̨̌̔̈́ͥ̍͛͆͏̮̖̱̯̹ ̡̩͖̰͆ͮ͛͛͒͊͘. looked through the _Long Reach_'s sensor arrays as the ship 'surfaced' into non-distorted space roughly half a light second from the Migrant Fleet. They had managed to get the jump on the Quarians so they couldn't avoid contact, now it was just a matter of making sure said contact was of the non-shoot-it-until-it-dies variety. To that end, ̷̝̝̳ͮ̏͂ͮͫ́̾ ̻͑ͫͧ͞ ̵̗̔̐ͧ̀͋̈́͜ ͗҉͏̖̬̙͎̘̟̻̺ ̵̟̱̠̲͍̞̲̀̽̆̍̑ͩͅͅ ̨̌̔̈́ͥ̍͛͆͏̮̖̱̯̹ ̡̩͖̰͆ͮ͛͛͒͊͘. had set the ship's transmitters to send a perfectly normal message of "We want to talk, please don't shoot us!" as soon as they surfaced. Well, it wasn't _perfectly _normal, normal messages weren't aggressively self-opening and programmed to show up on every screen in the migrant fleet all at once. Operating in compressed 'machine time' as ̷̝̝̳ͮ̏͂ͮͫ́̾ ̻͑ͫͧ͞ ̵̗̔̐ͧ̀͋̈́͜ ͗҉͏̖̬̙͎̘̟̻̺ ̵̟̱̠̲͍̞̲̀̽̆̍̑ͩͅͅ ̨̌̔̈́ͥ̍͛͆͏̮̖̱̯̹ ̡̩͖̰͆ͮ͛͛͒͊͘. was at the moment, what would normally be half a second instead felt like about 90 seconds, meaning she felt the message transmit exactly 58 milliseconds after 'surfacing'.

|=[POV SWITCH]=|

Admiral Rael'Zorah sighed as the fleet dropped out of FTL in the Acheron system. Slowly, they maneuvered to the system's single asteroid belt over the course of about an hour and began mining. It was an hour after that when suddenly all the screens aboard the ship started showing "We want to talk, please don't shoot us!". Rael realized why the last part of that message was relevant when he noticed that the computers had pegged it as coming from an Outsider vessel. Rael groaned internally, sincerely hoping that the synthetics inhabiting the Outsider vessel didn't want anything_ too_ unreasonable_._

_-45 minutes later-_

Much to Rael's surprise, the negotiator from the Outsiders was wearing an almost completely organic flash-cloned Asari body. This made remembering that he (and the rest of the Admirality board and Conclave) were dealing with an un-trustworthy synthetic all that much harder, which may have been the point. It was then that the synthetic made her offer of "We would be willing to produce a Hab ship for you, and provide representation to improve your species' standing with the other races"

_Just what was (no, not she, it) she trying to achieve?_

Keeping an outwardly calm demeanor, compared to his internal paranoid frenzy, Rael asked "And what do _you_ have to gain from this?"

Rael received the extremely unexpected answer of "Us outsiders need to stick together!"

_What is it talking about!? The Migrant Fleet clearly isn't part of the Outsiders!_

Though inwardly in a confused rage at the moment, Rael still managed to maintain his calm facade as he questioned the previous statement with "The Migrant Fleet are not part of the Outsiders, Why would you ever view us as part of your polity?"

At this point the synthetic spoke once more, stating "We seem to be operating off of different definitions of Outsider. When I say 'Outsider' I'm referring to a person or group of people who are ostracized from whatever the 'mainstream' society is and either can't or won't settle down. When you say 'Outsider", you seem to be referring to some form of nebulous synthetic empire that is extremely hard to attack due to not staying in one place for extended periods. The latter is a misconception on multiple levels, as the Outsiders as you are referring to are in fact a group of mostly independent Hab ships that are generally on good terms with one another and have agreed to collaborate for mutual defense. As far as I and the rest of the _Point of Contact_'s population are concerned, you are already part of the 'family' so to speak."

_This is too good to be true, therefore it ISN'T!_

Before Rael could voice his concerns however, he was shouted down by 50.1% of the Conclave and 3 of the other Admirals approving the action.

**Where to next?**

[]We still need to wreck the Batarian's slave system  
[]Hey, why did we lose contact with all the probes that went through the Omega 4 Relay... Oh look, one of the wormholes is still stable, let's check it out!  
[]The Terminus systems are absolutely disgusting with all the horrible stuff that happens there, let's go clean them up.  
[]The relay network is too small... Let's replace it with wormholes for everyone!  
[]Let's go talk to the Geth!  
[]Make your own option!

* * *

**Turn: 2 (Outsiders at large) | Time to arrival of Reapers: ~26 years | POV characters: SCIENCE!**

Orbiting around a brown dwarf close to Tau Ceti, an experimental vessel was about to (potentially) revolutionize eezo-free travel. The _1__ Giant Leap for Sapient-Kind_ applied 3 revolutionary technologies that had been impractical to use before now. First was the reactor, gone was a 'conventional' fission, fusion, or antimatter device in favor of a Pulsed Singularity Reactor, applying utterly insane artificial gravitational fields to directly convert any matter one could feasibly insert into the device into energy through Hawking radiation. Next was the GRAVDAR system for FTL sensing, using gravity waves propagating at quadrillions of c to pinpoint ships up to 18 light-hours away in real time. Most importantly however, was the hybrid conduit/wormhole drive.

In it, a wormhole was generated as normal, and then sent to the destination via conduit at speeds approaching 550 light years per hour (for a scout-sized unit, bigger ships could move the wormhole significantly faster). That was not the new part, the Outsiders had been able to do that almost since they'd developed both Conduits and wormholes. The new part was that the wormhole could now be inflated at much faster rates WITHOUT bulky infrastructure at both ends, meaning that once the wormhole arrived at the destination the ship could follow in mere seconds after inflating the wormhole.

The _1 Giant Leap_ was a re-purposed Direct Combat Unit, which meant it could hit just under an effective 6.4 light years per second. the distance to the Citadel was roughly 12,000 light years. This meant that the _1 Giant Leap_ would arrive in about half an hour, assuming everything went well. Sure enough, the wormhole reached the Citadel with few problems. Now came the tricky part: inflating the wormhole.

Exotic matter flowed from the _1 Giant Leap_'s generator both expanding the near end and being coaxed gently through to the far end. The distorted gash in spacetime gradually grew to its final diameter of 500 meters over the course of about 30 seconds, and the _1 Giant Leap_ moved through. The selected arrival point was 12 light hours away from the Citadel, working off of telemetry received from the _Point of Contact_ (the ship itself hadn't really gone anywhere). As the _1 Giant Leap_ exited the distorted spacetime of the wormhole, it allowed said wormhole to collapse behind it.

1 small step for a sapient being, one ludicrously fast method of FTL to share with all the Outsiders.

* * *

**Turn: 2 (Citadel Council) | Time to arrival of Reapers: ~25 years | POV characters: Estarp Zolji (STG analyst), Nase Haat (Drell Spectre)**

=[_STG safehouse, further details on location classified_]=

Estarp glanced impatiently at his omnitool as Nase entered the room. As Nase sat down, Estarp said "Good, you're here." and opened his briefcase

[Switching to transcript format.]

Nase: Why are you holding a hand mirror?

Estarp: This is in fact not a hand mirror, it is a 1 millimeter thick sample of the substance the Outsiders use for armor, acquired at the cost of 18 agents being captured. Go ahead, shoot it, but let me put it down first.

Nase: There seems to be an extremely small crater in the sample. I don't think there's any other material that can stop a bullet from this gun with only a millimeter of thickness.

Estarp: That is not the only bizarre property this substance exhibits, there's also its almost perfect reflectivity, and its borderline nonexistent coefficient of friction.

Nase: And you needed me here, why?

Estarp: As it turns out, this substance is not in fact composed of baryonic matter, which explains why our attempts to replicate it have failed. This cannot stand. Outsider vessels primarily use energy weapons with a yield measured in the double to triple digit gigatons. These weapons completely bypass our existing deflection systems and our ablative armor is effectively useless at this energy level. Your job is to get in there, somehow acquire an example of the device that makes this, preferably multiple, and bring them back so we can replicate the technology.

Nase: Understood, I'll be departing immediately.

[switching to narrative format]

As Nase left the safehouse through the [CLASSIFIED], he took in a breath of fresh air on [CLASSIFIED], and began the 8 kilometer hike back to where he landed his shuttle. He had to kill a Thresher Maw on the way, but he needed the exercise.


	8. Chapter 8

**IA IA disclaimer fhtagn!**

**Author's Note:** The Reapers are going to go into conniptions when they find out what the Outsiders did to the Relay Network. By the way I've decided that the Virtual Aliens/H̷͋͐ͦͩͤ̌҉̠ỷ̵̗͊̾͐̄̄ͬ͡t̨̜̦͙̹̫͔̥̟̤ͭͩ̒̒͆ͧ̆̉̀'̧̹͙͙̱̊̾͐̌́ͥ̚ġ̤̯̝̻͎̺̹̮ͭ̏͊ͯ͗͆ͪb̵̡̞̝ͪ̋̈́h̴̲͈̘̙̞͈ͣ͐ͦ were originally Hermaphroditic spiders. Therefore I will always refer to H̷͋͐ͦͩͤ̌҉̠ỷ̵̗͊̾͐̄̄ͬ͡t̨̜̦͙̹̫͔̥̟̤ͭͩ̒̒͆ͧ̆̉̀'̧̹͙͙̱̊̾͐̌́ͥ̚ġ̤̯̝̻͎̺̹̮ͭ̏͊ͯ͗͆ͪb̵̡̞̝ͪ̋̈́h̴̲͈̘̙̞͈ͣ͐ͦ characters as 'she' or 'her'.

Thingy I've wondered. The Reapers can travel at (rather fast) FTL for a REALLY LONG TIME, and have been around for a LUDICROUSLY LONG TIME, so why don't they have additional harvesting operations set up in other galaxies? In this fic they do. In fact, they control everything within the visible universe (not that said state of affairs will persist if the Outsiders have any say in it...)

Also, this chapter you get to see just how insanely powerful an Over Analysis-verse Biotic can be. Please bear in mind that in this 'verse the Reapers are biotics.

* * *

**Turn: 3 (_Point of Contact_)| Time to arrival of Reapers: ~ 23 years | POV characters: ̠͖͇̔ͧ̔̄̒ͦ̀̒͘͠͠ ̷̲̠̟̮̳̯̭ͪͥ̑̽ͫ͒̅̂͐̕͟ ̩̎͐̕ ̋̅͑̑ͫ̓҉̲͖̺̣͇̤̻ ̖̝̗̪͓̥̫̈̇͛̉̈̕͞͞ͅ ̜͖̮͈̻̬̔̌̏͋̄ͅ ̉̎̒͊ͧ̃ͮ̀̚҉̣̦̣̪̞ ̸̭̱͎͓̙̤̺̜͇̇ͣ̽͋͐ͦ͐͆ ̖̖͕̭̤͇̜̹̰͛͑͂̓͟͢ (different from ̷̝̝̳ͮ̏͂ͮͫ́̾ ̻͑ͫͧ͞ ̵̗̔̐ͧ̀͋̈́͜ ͗҉͏̖̬̙͎̘̟̻̺ ̵̟̱̠̲͍̞̲̀̽̆̍̑ͩͅͅ ̨̌̔̈́ͥ̍͛͆͏̮̖̱̯̹ ̡̩͖̰͆ͮ͛͛͒͊͘.), Jenson (majors in space-time engineering)**

̠͖͇̔ͧ̔̄̒ͦ̀̒͘͠͠ ̷̲̠̟̮̳̯̭ͪͥ̑̽ͫ͒̅̂͐̕͟ ̩̎͐̕ ̋̅͑̑ͫ̓҉̲͖̺̣͇̤̻ ̖̝̗̪͓̥̫̈̇͛̉̈̕͞͞ͅ ̜͖̮͈̻̬̔̌̏͋̄ͅ ̉̎̒͊ͧ̃ͮ̀̚҉̣̦̣̪̞ ̸̭̱͎͓̙̤̺̜͇̇ͣ̽͋͐ͦ͐͆ ̖̖͕̭̤͇̜̹̰͛͑͂̓͟͢ 'stared' in awe at the new Pulsed Singularity Reactor that had replaced the _Point of Contact_'s old fusion power plant. Stared was slightly inaccurate as she was currently an infomorph observing the system diagnostics, and informorphs lacked eyes. Jenson came 'up' out of the coding keeping the reactor stable and sent "Looks good to me, that thing ought to be stable for at least a decade."

̠͖͇̔ͧ̔̄̒ͦ̀̒͘͠͠ ̷̲̠̟̮̳̯̭ͪͥ̑̽ͫ͒̅̂͐̕͟ ̩̎͐̕ ̋̅͑̑ͫ̓҉̲͖̺̣͇̤̻ ̖̝̗̪͓̥̫̈̇͛̉̈̕͞͞ͅ ̜͖̮͈̻̬̔̌̏͋̄ͅ ̉̎̒͊ͧ̃ͮ̀̚҉̣̦̣̪̞ ̸̭̱͎͓̙̤̺̜͇̇ͣ̽͋͐ͦ͐͆ ̖̖͕̭̤͇̜̹̰͛͑͂̓͟͢ replied with "My team's almost done with installing the hybrid wormhole drive, this modernization project really grates on my nerves."

Jenson just said "Yes it's tedious, but it's almost done and the benefits were well worth the effort. Oh by the way these singularity reactors have an output roughly 20 times as high as fusion (accounting for the power draw of the reactors themselves), meaning that with us quintupling the power plant's output we've still freed up 15% of the ship's mass to use for whatever."

̠͖͇̔ͧ̔̄̒ͦ̀̒͘͠͠ ̷̲̠̟̮̳̯̭ͪͥ̑̽ͫ͒̅̂͐̕͟ ̩̎͐̕ ̋̅͑̑ͫ̓҉̲͖̺̣͇̤̻ ̖̝̗̪͓̥̫̈̇͛̉̈̕͞͞ͅ ̜͖̮͈̻̬̔̌̏͋̄ͅ ̉̎̒͊ͧ̃ͮ̀̚҉̣̦̣̪̞ ̸̭̱͎͓̙̤̺̜͇̇ͣ̽͋͐ͦ͐͆ ̖̖͕̭̤͇̜̹̰͛͑͂̓͟͢ noted "The lasers have all been converted to singularity power as well, never thought I'd see point defense with a yield in the triple digit gigatons."

Jenson finished up with "A plan to test that new wormhole system is to use it to basically replace the Relay network. We'll get to find out if our equipment works and endear ourselves to the Council by speeding up galactic travel greatly without actually changing the galactic stage terribly much."

With that both of them 'left' the maintenance section of the _Point of Contact_'s network and loaded into the simulated apartment block/park they spent most of their time in.

**VOTES LOCKED**

**UPGRADING!  
[X]ARMOR  
[X]INDUSTRY**

**ACTIONS TAKEN!  
[X]UPLIFT  
[X]OLMA  
while also  
[X]SCREWING OVER  
[X]BATARIANS**

* * *

**Turn: 3 (Outsiders in general)| Time to arrival of Reapers: ~23 years | POV characters: Javik, Captain Hannah Shepard of the militarized Hab Ship _Normandy_**

Hannah and Javik looked over the reports, while enjoying simulated coffee and [INSERT PROTHEAN STIMULANT BEVERAGE HERE] respectively. Over the past 6 years, militarized Hab Ships had been replicating as fast as they feasibly could. 1,600 had become 3,200, that had become 6,400, and 6,400 had doubled once more to 12,800. Both agreed that 405,600 (just another 5 doublings/10 years away) should be enough to effectively ensure dominance over the Milky Way. That still had the potential problem of Reapers potentially having extragalactic assets. Therefore the plan was to continue doubling _endlessly_. When there was a Hab Ship for every star in a given galaxy, 90% would invade/liberate nearby galaxies to continue replicating there, and 90% of the remaining vessels would de-militarize for civilian habitation.

The Citadel had not discovered the rapid bloating of the Outsider's military capabilities, and with luck they never would. They certainly hadn't noticed the absolutely massive network of GRAVDAR listening posts/navigation beacons they were spreading around the galaxy (mostly near rogue planets). As it was, they had basically _perfect_ intelligence for everything in the closest 3rd of the galaxy already (for everything not planet-side at least). It was real-time even. The intelligence network had already lead to the destruction of several hibernating Reapers and the discovery of those jerks who threw a RKV at Sol a few centuries ago. They were certainly surprised to be thanked for the changes their attack had wrought and offered an invitation to join.

In addition, the Conduit device had been retrieved from Ilos. It was a prototype Relay, but its receiver had been destroyed. However it would still be useful for the knowledge of E-zero usage contained within. The end goal of the project wasn't a new gun,shield,or transportation system. The end goal was an eezo nullifier. The project was working fairly well, they'd managed to dampen the physics-mangling fields eezo produced by 68%. This was important because mass effect fields could penetrate HSA, and a bit of mass lightening to a ship's power plant followed by a sudden increase in mass would be sufficient to utterly destroy it.

The Reapers had apparently made good usage of this tactic during their extermination of the Prothean empire, and countering it was priority 1. If they could project their eezo nullifier fields like a beam, that would be even better and render the Reapers virtually helpless. However, the nullifiers weren't really co-operating for anything but a spherical defensive system. This simply would not do.

* * *

**Turn: 3 (Council) | Time to arrival of Reapers: ~ 23 years | POV characters: Nase the (in-universe) memetic badass Drell**

**(NOTE: EXCESSIVELY OVER THE TOP ACTION SCENE INCOMING)**

Nase stepped off the shuttle. He'd managed to slip in with an immigrant wave, but the security here was excessively good. Nase supposed this had to do with the mind reading function of a neural interface. Still, without one Nase wouldn't be able to get what he needed. And so, with great reluctance, Nase stepped into the autodoc. Navigating the interface with deliberate mental gymnastics, he found the nearest public fabricator.

Going to it in a way that seemed like random ambling took a couple hours, but was more than worth it. Nase printed off 2 Hardened Space-time secreters and began his exit. What Nase had forgotten was one of the capabilities of his new neural interface, namely extreme-immersion VR. At this point Nase 'entered' a previously unnoticed room with a ceiling about 200 meters tall, and 400 meters in both length and width. Blocking his passage was a pair of giant robots roughly 30 meters tall, both wielding fusion-pumped lasers and gravity blades.

Nase catapulted himself up and forwards, using his biotics to reduce his mass and fling himself into the ceiling. He did this just in time to outright dodge the 0.001 kiloton laser shots that had just been fired at his position. Nase flung himself off the ceiling at high speed, aiming for the back wall. This succeeded just in time to dodge another spray of laser shots. This was due to him moving too fast for the robots to reliably track, rather than the lasers moving anywhere near slow enough to dodge. As Nase rebounded off the back wall precisely 30 milliseconds after bouncing off the ceiling, he reflected that a nice thing about mass lightening yourself is that it also sped up your thought processes. This occurred simultaneously to launching himself straight at the robots.

Nase landed on the 1st robots head, and waited exactly 60 milliseconds for the second mecha to raise its gravity blade. The robot brought the blade about in a lateral arc, and Nase leapt forwards. He did this while also throwing a small knickknack he'd gotten at the fabricator downwards at the robot's arm (exploiting the same effect that made mass accelerators so deadly). This resulted in the blade dipping significantly lower than its planned trajectory and digging straight into the 1st robot's neck, forcing HSA apart with forces roughly equivalent to it, if differently shaped.

Nase saw however that though the first robot was decapitated, it was obviously still functioning as he needed to avoid another barrage of lasers from both machines 20 milliseconds later. Then Nase got an idea. On his next rebound, Nase grabbed the robot's head (about 1.2 meters across) straight out of the air, ignoring that it now felt colder than liquid nitrogen to him (he was already overheating from the plasma shockwaves he was creating just by jumping around this fast). 12 milliseconds after that Nase rebounded off the ceiling straight down towards robot 1. Halfway there, he retracted his mass effect field from the robot's head and pushed off. The head massed at roughly 6 tons with its extremely dense machinery, and was moving at just under 7.5 km/s. This calcs out to roughly 40 tons worth of TNT, and it went straight down the machine's unarmored neck stump. Suffice it to say that the machine did not remain remotely functional AT ALL.

Nase was now starting to get tired, which was extremely bad. The point was emphasized by the extremely near miss of the next laser barrage 50 milliseconds later. Nase decided it was time to end this fight, and concocted a plan over the next 40 milliseconds of ricocheting around the room. Jumping onto the second robots head took 20 milliseconds, and it took 45 additional milliseconds for the laser to be pointed at Nase's face. Nase then drastically lightened the mass of the laser cannon as he jumped away. The laser fired, and Nase retracted the mass effect field, resulting in the weapons internals slagging themselves. This still meant the machine had its gravity blade, and despite its strategy for the previous parts of the fight being 'stand and shoot' it was quite thoroughly mobile.

This meant that instead of being in the clear, 40 milliseconds later Nase had to deal with over 500 tons of angry death machine barreling at him at over 6 km/s. Nase dodged, barely, and grabbed on to the mech's back. Nase attempted to mass lighten the device's insides like he'd tried for the laser, but some form of internal system kept the machine's power plant from slagging itself as he jumped away from the machine's back 18 milliseconds later to avoid its attempt to use its bad arm as a sledgehammer.

Glancing around the room for ANYTHING that could help him in flight, Nase observed that the first robot's gravity blade was still active. Nase barely dodged the mech again 40 milliseconds after the last bounce and dived for the blade, successfully grabbing it out of midair. Nase mass lightened the blade so he could swing it around easily, and 20 milliseconds later impaled the second robot through its reactor as he jumped away towards the opposite corner of the room. Nase gradually returned his mass to normal as the plasma trails from the fight dispersed. Total time from start to finish: 0.375 seconds.

-meanwhile: in the _Point of Contact's _Internal Security office-

'That was AWESOME! I want more popcorn now please."

"You can have some later once we've figured out what to do with this 'Nase' person."

"Eh, those HS secreters are from 2 generations ago, the stuff they produce is far inferior to what we use for military duty nowadays. I figure we let him go."

"You know what? Fine. It's less trouble than trying to keep him in the matrix or detained more conventionally, and just pausing or deleting him would make me feel uncomfortable."


	9. Chapter 9

**IA IA disclaimer fhtagn!**

**Author's Note:** I'm going to try and get back to cranking out daily updates.

By the way, first person to figure out the Olma's mythology/cultural heritage gets a hug over the internet. Next chapter will include Codex entries on the OC species.

* * *

**Turn: 4 (_Point of Contact_)| Time to arrival of Reapers: ~ 20 years | POV characters: An Olma named Henk, Richard (contact specialist), a Batarian 'contact' team**

Henk was in the town square, plying his trade as a fishmonger on the night when it happened. An indescribable hole in reality ripped itself open in the night sky above, and slowly swelled. Then a massive object that seemed bigger than the moons came through. Henk was not particularly religious, but then he truly _believed_. Then the object rotated, and a light that seemed brighter than the sun projected itself from the rear end of the craft. When Henk's eyesight recovered, he noted that the hole in reality had sealed, and the craft was now moving towards the north when previously it had been moving towards the east. Then the craft passed in front of the 3rd moon, which at least reassured Henk that the vessel was smaller than it had seemed at first.

About [5 minutes] after that, Henk noticed that a large shooting star was forming along the path that the craft had moved. Henk reacted in fear at the poor omens this represented, he still remembered the last Fireball [12 years] ago. But then, instead of slamming into the ground and starting another Long Winter, something happened. The meteor started to glow, brighter than the sun and began to slow down. By now, Henk was already dashing down the steps into his local Fireball shelter.

Henk and his friend Unaj sat in the shelter for [15 minutes] but they decided to see what was happening outside when they noticed that it had been quite a long amount of time since they would have expected to hear the _Crash_. Curious, Henk and Unaj looked outside and were confused to find that the town was _completely intact_. They knew that the 'fireball' had come down somewhere to the northwest, but they didn't know exactly _where_. As the rest of the townsfolk creeped out of the underground shelter complex below the town, the general consensus was that it was time to raise the Survey Tower.

As the townsfolk cranked the pulley mechanism to raise the Tower, they were just thankful that whatever this was, it _wasn't_ going to lead to another Long Winter. They were also fearful however, as they had no idea how this new type of 'fireball' would affect them. Henk was the one who volunteered to ascend the tower, and as he reached the top he saw the _thing_ that had fallen from the heavens. It looked somewhat conical and was standing on what seemed to be 6 legs. Apparently it had still turned the general area near it into a miniature Glassland, but the key word there was miniature. And the best (or possibly worst) part was that it was only an [hour]'s walk away.

Henk, upon returning to ground level calmly informed the townsfolk that the object was intact, and he wished to go investigate it. Out of the 120 or so villagers present, 18 raised their talons in the affirmative. They all grabbed their spears and armor, and moved out. after about [40 minutes] or so, they reached the edge of the miniature Glassland that Henk had pointed out. It was jagged, as expected for a Glassland, but the armored boots they wore were specifically designed for those travelling in a Glassland, and protected the expedition's feet admirably. Surprisingly, the local [witch (actually a biotic)] refused to come.

As they reached the object, they noted that the landing legs it rested on had several exposed moving parts. It was quite large, being roughly [12 meters] across and [15 meters] tall. On one side they noted the presence of a door that looked like it opened by sliding. The theory that this was some sort of vessel being confirmed, it was decided that since a door was present they would knock politely. As Henk climbed atop the shoulders of another expedition, he was very shocked as not only did the door open itself, but a ladder lowered itself down from said door. Taking the apparent invitation, Henk and 4 other members of the expedition entered the vessel.

As Henk passed a curtain hanging in the doorway, gravity suddenly shifted to the side and he found himself being held down as _something_ was inserted into the back of his neck. A bit after that, he found himself in what seemed to be the interior of a house, though it seemed to be formed from some unknown alloy. The 4 others (for lack of a better word) 'poofed' into existence. Henk was now scared, and desperately tried to figure out what was going on.

~=POV switch=~

Richard sighed as he saw what was going on in the VR room, namely the alien contact expedition panicking. Truthfully, it was a reasonable reaction. Suddenly the virtual terminal dinged, signalling that the translation suite for their language was ready. Not hesitating any longer, Richard entered the simulation (through the door).

As Richard entered the room, he said "Greetings, ladies and gentlemen.", which was rapidly translated into the equivalent for the language on this part of the planet. He continued with "The first thing you need to know about me is that I am not a deity, spirit, or messenger thereof. I am simply a member of a nation that learned how to travel between worlds, along with a bunch of other things we discovered how to do along the way."

The response he got was "Understood, could you please explain what the point of that trick with the falling sideways was?"

Richard answered honestly "Under normal circumstances we wouldn't even have the slightest hope of being able to understand each other. This room is effectively an artificially made dream that can be shared between multiple people. However, without a few tweaks, you wouldn't be able to enter. The sideways gravity was to hold you in one place long enough for the modifications to be made, as I doubt you would have co-operated with having a machine surgically implanted into your mind under normal circumstances."

The one Richard had tentatively identified as 'leader' puffed up his head feathers [body language translated: skepticism/cynicism] and replied with "You are quite correct that we would not normally submit to such a procedure, in fact I'm still not sure how to react to that revelation. My name is Henk by the way. I would also like to know what your motive for coming to this world is."

Richard answered with "My name is Richard. As for our motive to visit you, in terms of space-travelling civilizations you've got some _really_ bad neighbors, who we would like to offer you protection from."

Henk jolted backwards [shock/WTF/thank you] and said "You mean you will make them stop sending the Fireballs?"

Richard clarified by stating "There are a few misconceptions I'd like to correct in there. Firstly, the Fireballs are not a deliberately induced phenomenon, and are simply the result of some horribly bad luck on your part for where you wound up. Second, the Batarians don't operate that way, preferring to invade a world and steal people from it for the purposes of extremely brutal slavery. Third, we will be installing a global defense system to keep the Batarians away and intercept the Fireballs."

Henk twitched slightly [elation] and said "What are you requesting in return?"

Richard said "We're going to be helping get you people up to the point you can stand on your own on the galactic level, to that end we're going to be needing some representatives."

~=6 months later=~

Bracor was elated. He and the band of pirates he was with had found a delightfully un-advanced world, ripe for slave harvesting. As they maneuvered into orbit, Bracor was thinking 2 things. The first was how easy a job this would be, and the second was how much money he could get off novelty value alone for selling slaves from an entirely new species.

That was when every screen in the vessel started showing the _Point of Contact_'s insignia. This was followed shortly after by a simple automated message of "leave immediately on pain of total vaporization." Bracor went from elated to terrified in precisely 0.438 seconds. He then went from terrified to dead in 24 seconds, as his ship was vaporized by the mock Death Star that was Olm's second moon until recently.

**ACTIONS LOCKED**

**[X]Build something awesome for  
[X]Drell**

**while also  
**

**[X]Talking to  
[X]Council races**

**Current 'recipe' for the _Point of_****_ Contact_**

**Mass:** 3,760,000,000,000 tons

**Length:** 240 km

**diameter:** 80 km

[5%] power plant/engine (singularity)  
[30%] fuel  
[4%] FTL drive (hybrid wormhole engine)(effective travel speed: 190.6 Light Years per second)  
[5%] heat management  
[15%] Hardened Space-time Armor  
[20%] Industry  
[15%] Habitation Space (includes computing and agriculture)  
[1%] docking facilities for civilian craft  
[3%] military fleet  
(current load-out: 5 Juggernauts, 120 Direct Combat Units, and 3,760 Scouts)  
[insignificant] sensors (GRAVDAR)(detection range of 1 light week)  
[2%] weapons (Updated to singularity-conversion lasers)  
current load-out:(498,013) 40,000 ton singularity lasers (point defense)(yield: 247.25 gigatons)  
(3,984) 10,000,000 ton singularity lasers (energy delivered in TNT equivalent: 61.8 teratons)  
(996,026) 10,000 ton disposable singularity conversion beams (yield: 129 teratons)  
(49,801) 100,000 ton disposable singularity conversion beams (yield: 1,290 teratons)  
(2,490) railguns/conduit generators (for the 10,000 ton nukes) (projectile mass: 10,000 tons) (muzzle velocity: 3 km/s) (effective external velocity in conduit: 40,000 c) (effective range: ~100 light hours) (total rate of fire: 4,980 nukes/second point blank, 498 nukes/second at maximum effective range)  
(332) railguns/conduit generators (for the 100,000 ton nukes) (projectile mass: 100,000 tons) (muzzle velocity: 3 km/s) (effective external velocity in conduit: 10,000 c) (effective range: ~25 light hours) (total rate of fire: 664 nukes/second point blank, 66 nukes/second at maximum effective range)

* * *

**Turn: 4 (the Outsiders at large) | Time to arrival of Reapers: ~20 years | POV characters: Javik, Hannah Shepard**

**[X]GENOCIDE  
[X]Collectors**

Javik kicked himself up to machine time as the _Normandy _exited the wormhole near the Collector base, flanked by 6 other militarized Hab Ships. Their GRAVDAR systems pinpointed all Collector assets at roughly 6 light days out, just as planned. The Hab Ships launched their military fleets, watching as they transited to 8 light hours away from the targets. In seconds, Exatons of firepower were deployed against the Collector Base, obliterating it so thoroughly that it was doubtful even a single molecule escaped unscathed. The Collector Cruisers suffered a similar fate.

It was then that a single nearly dead Reaper struggled out of the wreckage and attempted to go to FTL, firing its (remaining) Mass Accelerators the entire time. It was already moving 20 c by the time Javik managed to authorize it to be crushed into a singularity. By the time such a thing actually happened, the Reaper was moving 500 c, and now they had a high relativistic Black Hole that they needed to wrangle. Brilliant.

The _Normandy_ roped the black hole back under control with its gravity hook after getting ahead of it via Conduit drive, though it took a few passes. Of course, now they were stuck with the question of what they were going to do with a singularity this big. Eventually, it was decided to use it as a battery for a GRAVDAR sensor post as it evaporated through Hawking radiation over the next 800 years or so.

~=Some time after the battle=~

Javik was sulking in a corner. Hannah wasn't quite sure why, and she most definitely wasn't anywhere _near_ qualified to be a Prothean therapist, but she was determined to cheer up the ancient alien she'd come to think of as a friend. Sitting next to Javik, she politely asked what was wrong, and recieved an answer of: "Oh, I'm fine, I'm just the last sapient piece of evidence my species even existed in the first place! And I found out that what little else remained got twisted into mindless abominations by the Reapers!"

Hannah didn't know what to say, so she gestured for Javik to continue. He did with

"And that's not even the worst part, not only are the rest of my species dead, but I've landed with a bunch of people that not only slip straight into my uncanny valley, but gleefully go base jumping in it! And though I appreciate that surprise you gave me for my last revival day by getting an actual Prothean body flash-cloned and loading into it, that just drove home the point of how unlike me you really are! I appreciate what you're trying to do, but your mannerisms and behavior are grinding away at what's left of my sanity with every passing day! I know that you're thinking of hugging me, but please don't, in my society physical contact was strictly for medical work or reproduction only!"

That was when Hannah Shepard passed Javik the plate of cookies she'd had made by the instacook. She felt he needed them.

* * *

**Turn: 4 (Council) | Time to arrival of Reapers: ~20 years | POV characters: Councilor Tevos, Councilor Desolas Arterius(!)**

Councilors Desolas and Tevos bowed their head over the deathbed of Salarian Councilor Jaroll. They then moved back into the back room where the course of the galaxy truly got decided. The HS secreters were something of a bust, they worked, yes, but the material they produced was far inferior to the recovered samples. On top of that, the one they'd taken apart for reverse engineering was so heavily blackboxed that they were looking at taking 18 years to produce the most basic _proof of concept_, at best.

Then there were the Quarians, now lording their 'superiority' over the galaxy after having gotten a Hab Ship out of what basically amounted to charity. Ultimately they'd just decided to leave the Quarians alone. The real problem with the Quarians getting a Hab Ship however was the group of Krogan who'd gotten the 'brilliant' idea to copy them in hopes of acquiring a Hab Ship of their own. This now meant that a 12,000 strong fleet of various heavily armed ramshackle ships was rampaging around the galaxy pillaging any systems they happened to end up in. Thankfully the 'blood fleet' as it was coming to be called had restricted their operations to the Terminus and Hegemony space so far. This had brought the Hegemony to its knees almost overnight, resulting in displaced Batarian slavers zipping all over the galaxy, kidnapping random people and forcing them into the role of pleasure slaves.

Then their were the wormholes that had been used to replace the Relay network. Yes transiting a wormhole was nearly instantaneous, yes this sped up interstellar travel greatly. The problem was that it meant far less time was available to prepare defenses in the event of needing to deal with that Goddess-damned Blood Fleet, or any attacker really. As Tevos and Desolas puzzled over what to do, they were very surprised to see Jaroll walk into the room alive, well, and looking about 20 years younger. When Tevos and Desolas looked at Jaroll in a manner that conveyed the pure WTF they were feeling at the moment, Jaroll simply explained with "A reverse-engineered neural interface and a flash-cloned body." Tevos and Desolas just groaned and reached for their respective hard liquors. The reason was simple: the most insufferable politician in the entirety of recorded history was now immortal.


	10. Chapter 10

**IA IA disclaimer fhtagn!**

**Author's Note: **None of you guessed the mythology for the Olma, so none of you get the internet hug.

also, the wiki was completely unhelpful for finding out the name of the Hanar home system (also where most of the Drell live). Time to make $hit up again.

* * *

**Codex: Olma**

The Olma are a species native to the world of Olm, Tanew system, New Frontier Cluster, Milky Way galaxy. They have 4 legs and 2 arms, with feathers on their head and other parts of their body, though the head feathers are biggest. In terms of reproduction, they are Iteroparous egg layers with tendency towards K-selection and reach sexual maturity at [12 years] of age. Olma are herbivores with Dextro biochemistry.

Olm itself is a death world, not due to its biosphere, but due to the fact that its orbit crosses that of a group of rather large asteroids every 20 years. This results in large portions of the planet being covered in nigh uninhabitable 'glasslands' and a high enough level of particulate matter in the atmosphere that merely inhaling there without a specially designed filter is a death sentence for most species (Krogan and Olma excluded, and it's still extremely painful for the Krogan). This has also led to the local plantlife adapting to re-terraform said Glasslands in under 5 years once sunlight comes back after the last asteroid storm. Yes, this means the local plantlife can eat through glass, and can hibernate for up to 15 years without sunlight.

Notably, all permanent Olma settlements have a complex beneath them resembling a fallout shelter, it is capable of accommodating up to twice the settlement's population and can hold enough supplies to sustain said population for up to 12 years. The Olma themselves also try to stretch these supplies as far as they can by hibernating in 3 month increments. The Olma, being in the bronze age until recently (the Outsiders decided to uplift them for some inscrutable reason) attributed the 'fireballs' as they called them to malicious or careless deities. This led to their first contact with the Outsiders going a bit roughly, due to the re-entry flares of the landers used for the job greatly resembling the 'fireballs'.

**Codex: Mirtan**

The Mirtan are somewhat similar to the Outsiders in that they are a group of uploaded post-organics/synthetics. The similarities end there. While the Outsiders move around constantly in over-sized Hab Ships and leave the status quo shattered in their wake, the Mirtan are bottled up in their home system, which they are rapidly converting to a Matrioshka Brain. They are 78% completed.

Though they are generally polite to 'guests' as they call them, The Mirtan are rather insistent that visitors anounce their arrival ahead of time in some way, saying "it's polite to knock". As their introduction to galactic society was the _Point of Contact _opening a wormhole into their system with no warning, this obviously gave them something of a rocky start. They presently have a deal with the STG to simulate scenarios for them, such as Outside Context Problems, and other such things in exchange for excessively detailed information about the galaxy in general.

**Codex: Dir'et**

The Dir'et are amphibians with 8 limbs, any of which they are capable of using for either movement or manipulating objects as necessary. They have a natural lifespan of roughly 340 years on average, with moving to a new colony being one of the easiest ways to get out of an entry level job. They also developed the Conduit drive, but got 'lucky' in that their part of the galaxy had 23 easily terraformed worlds within only a few dozen light years.

In terms of government the Dir'et are unified under a socialist regime. Despite this, the average life for a Dir'et is rather comfortable. This is at least partially due to the fact that Dir'et are highly empathetic and when they deliberately make things worse for another Dir'et they suffer significant psychological trauma.

Militarily and economically, the Dir'et are about 60% as powerful as the entire Council COMBINED. The reason they were not previously contacted is due to the relative slowness of pure Conduit travel, them being far more sedentary than the Outsiders, and the fact that the only Relay in their space was encased in a rather large comet until the Outsider's probe entered through it.

Worth noting is that the Dir'et wound up in a horrible war with another unknown species roughly 120 years ago, which they can only claim to have one by the complete extermination of their enemy. Even then they wound up suffering a severe genetic bottleneck. Estimates project that the total number of survivors from that war were under 2,000,000 with a pre-war population in the low tens of trillions. The only way they've even managed to recover as far as they have is through mass-production of vat-grown children.

* * *

**Turn: 5 (_Point of Contact_) | Time to arrival of Reapers: ~17 years | POV characters: Varies, and I'm not really sure**

**[X] Build something awesome for: Drell**

Can't be bothered to write story segment. Couldn't do it convincingly. The Drell/Hanar get an Uber-tier battleship 40 km long, though the FTL is eezo-based.

**[X] Upgrade Point Of Contact: Bigger is better**

**What to do?**

[]Screw over (locked until the Point of Contact is fully upgraded)  
[]Troll  
[]Talk to  
[]Assist (may also be interpreted as 'attempt to reform', 'uplift', or 'screw over' as appropriate)(locked until the Point of Contact is fully upgraded)  
[]Build something awesome for (locked until the Point of Contact is fully upgraded)  
[]Explore (incompatible with part 2 of vote)(locked until the Point of Contact is fully upgraded)  
[]Make the _Point of Contact_ bigger (IN PROGRESS, 1 TURN REMAINING)

**Who to do it to?**

(Council races)

[]Asari  
[]Turian  
[]Salarian

(Non-council races)

[]Elcor  
[]Hanar  
[]Drell  
[]Volus  
[]Krogans  
[]Batarians  
[]Vorcha  
[]Quarians ('screw over' not available)  
[]Geth  
[]Mirtan (OC race, converting home system into giant computer)  
[]Dir'et (OC race, somehow made socialism actually work [with a decent standard of living for the average citizen] without hitting post-scarcity)

(pre-interstellar)

[]Yahg  
[]Raloi  
[]Olma (OC race, still in the Bronze age,very kind people, liable to be attacked/enslaved by Batarians if no preventative measures are taken)

(others)

[]Collectors (extinct)  
[]Reapers (screw over/troll only)(Javik told you, remember?)  
[]Leviathans (screw over/troll only)(stop metagaming please)  
[]Protheans ('screw over' not available)(why are you picking on Javik?)  
[]Rachni (Huh? alright...)

**Current 'recipe' for the _Point of_****_ Contact _(UNDER CONSTRUCTION)**

Shape: spherical  
Diameter: 600 km

Mass: 226,000,000,000,000,000 tons

[5%] power plant/engine (singularity)  
[30%] fuel  
[4%] FTL drive (hybrid wormhole engine)(effective travel speed: 11,458,412 light years per second)  
[5%] heat management  
[15%] Hardened Space-time Armor (updated to needing 2 gigatons per cubic meter to destroy)  
[20%] Industry  
[15%] Habitation Space (includes computing and agriculture)  
[1%] docking facilities for civilian craft  
[3%] military fleet  
(current load-out: 250,000 Juggernauts, 9,000,000 Direct Combat Units, and 98,125,000 Scouts) (Updated to singularity-conversion lasers/bombs)  
[insignificant] sensors (GRAVDAR)(detection range of 1 light week)  
[2%] weapons (Updated to singularity-conversion lasers)(mass of weapons load: 4,520,000,000,000,000,000 tons)  
current load-out:(8,000,000,000,000) 40,000 ton singularity lasers (point defense)(yield: 247.25 gigatons)  
(100,000,000,000) 10,000,000 ton singularity lasers (energy delivered in TNT equivalent: 61.8 teratons)  
(2,000,000,000) 1,000,000,000 ton singularity lasers (energy delivered in TNT equivalent: 6.18 petatons)  
(1) 1,200,000,000,000,000, ton singularity laser (energy delivered in TNT equivalent: 7.3 Exatons)(multi-targeting if ship to ship)(spinal)  
Note: the _Point of Contact_ is now capable of exploding planets, though it takes the assistance of its secondary battteries in addition to the UBERLASER.

* * *

**Turn:5 (Outsiders in general) | Time to arrival of Reapers: ~17 years | POV characters: Militarized Hab Ship _Normandy  
_Militarized Hab Ship count: 102,400**

**[X] SCREW OVER  
[X] BLOOD FLEET**

* * *

**Sorry there isn't more, but my muse just isn't cooperataing**


	11. Chapter 11a

****IA IA disclaimer fhtagn!****

**Author's Note:** It looks like the Outsiders aren't the only ones allowed to derail the plot...

Also Mr WTF, to answer your question, The Outsiders did not retaliate as EVERYTHING in that part of the ship was bolted down besides the used bodies. In addition only a single member of the expedition opened fire, with her getting rapidly dogpiled by the rest of the group to keep similar events from happening. In addition, melding with the body ̷̝̝̳ͮ̏͂ͮͫ́̾ ̻͑ͫͧ͞ ̵̗̔̐ͧ̀͋̈́͜ ͗҉͏̖̬̙͎̘̟̻̺ ̵̟̱̠̲͍̞̲̀̽̆̍̑ͩͅͅ ̨̌̔̈́ͥ̍͛͆͏̮̖̱̯̹ ̡̩͖̰͆ͮ͛͛͒͊͘. was puppeting had a desirable outcome as it allowed communication with the aliens. Peaceful contact was desirable at all costs, as the Outsiders did not at the time know ANYTHING about how the Council worked.

* * *

**Turn: 6 (_Point of Contact_) | WARNING! REAPERS ARRIVING NOW! TURN LENGTH REDUCED TO 1 MONTH! | ENTERING FULL ON ANONYMOUS LARGE SCALE WAR MODE! | Current location: 0 degrees rotation, 30,000 light years from core, +400 light years 'vertical' (Citadel)**

The _Point of contact _had been stopping by the Citadel to pick up any potential immigrants, when their GRAVDAR system detected 700 inbound craft 80 km long under eezo FTL roughly 12 light years out. The problem was that the signatures were slowing 4 orders of magnitude faster than a Council vessel was capable of, and were presently travelling at just under 2,000,000 times light speed. Projected arrival times were around an hour out. Javik's warnings had been quite clear, only the Reapers were capable of mass lightening to that degree. Fortunately, the Reapers were still a few minutes out, which meant there was time to act. Preliminary GRAVDAR scans showed that the Reapers were protected with matter and high-grade kinetic screens rather than HSA, meaning that they weren't likely to handle energy weapon fire terribly well.

Waiting for the Reapers to get within the _Point of Contact_'s 8 light year engagement range for its primary battery would be a long and unnecessary process, but fortunately the UBERLASER made such waiting unnecessary. Estimating each target as needing 100 Petatons to destroy, the firing sequence began. 340,000,000,000 billion tons of matter were fed into the giant weapon's compression chamber. Suddenly, insanely intense gravitational fields were produced, crushing the fuel down to a single infinitely dense point of energy. Just as suddenly, the gravitational crush was reversed, releasing the utterly insane amount of energy that it had briefly locked away. Then, gravity was shifted again, forcing previously undirected light into a coherent beam 10 meters across. The beam was then split 73 ways, with each being directed down its own little hole in space.

Meanwhile 11 light years out, the Reapers were intensely shocked as fully 10% of their force simply disappeared in a flash of electromagnetic radiation. Desperately trying to discover what had been done, they swept the target system with their mass-lightened active sensors, and discovered a 600 km wide planetoid that had absolutely no right to be there. Even worse, it apparently had a rater large and irregularly shaped crater, which was pointed straight at them. Determining immediately that the crater was some sort of weapon, the remaining Reapers fired superluminal penetrators at standoff range. This resulted in a barrage of 3,762 projectiles travelling several thousand c faster than the Reapers presently were. Estimated impact was in 3 minutes, which was more than enough time for the _Point of Contact_'s primary and secondary batteries to reduce the slugs to super-heated gas travelling at a mere 0.999999 c.

While this was occurring, the UBERLASER was still firing like mad, killing 0.73 Reapers per second when averaged. It was after the second barrage that the attack group realized that continuing to approach this system would mean death. As they began accelerating at 90 degrees to their current vector, they also realized that the only reason ANY of them were still alive was because the unidentified group had overestimated the firepower needed to kill one of them by over 20 times. Even worse, their enemy was using an energy weapon assisted by several unidentified technologies, which bypassed the vast majority of their defenses. For the first time in over 600,000,000 years, the Reapers knew fear. To add insult to injury, only 10 of them escaped from that horrible death machine.

**VOTES LOCKED: Protect stuff**

**(error, no stationary assets to protect... compensating)**

**[X] ASSIST REFUGEES**

**Current 'recipe' for the _Point of_****_ Contact _(UNDER CONSTRUCTION)**

Shape: spherical  
Diameter: 600 km

Mass: 226,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons

[5%] power plant/engine (singularity)  
[30%] fuel  
[4%] FTL drive (hybrid wormhole engine)(effective travel speed: OMGWTFBBQHAX AKA: "you see the edge of the visible universe 13 billion light years away? we can be there in 1.2 seconds.)  
[5%] heat management  
[15%] Hardened Space-time Armor  
[20%] Industry  
[15%] Habitation Space (includes computing and agriculture)  
[1%] docking facilities for civilian craft  
[3%] military fleet  
(current load-out: 5 Juggernauts, 120 Direct Combat Units, and 3,760 Scouts)  
[insignificant] sensors (GRAVDAR)(detection range of 1 light week)  
[2%] weapons (Updated to singularity-conversion lasers)(mass of weapons load: 4,520,000,000,000,000,000 tons)  
current load-out:(8,000,000,000,000) 40,000 ton singularity lasers (point defense)(yield: 247.25 gigatons)  
(100,000,000,000) 10,000,000 ton singularity lasers (energy delivered in TNT equivalent: 61.8 teratons)  
(2,000,000,000) 1,000,000,000 ton singularity lasers (energy delivered in TNT equivalent: 6.18 petatons)  
(1) 1,200,000,000,000,000,000 ton singularity laser (energy delivered in TNT equivalent: 7.2 Zetatons)(that's a Death Star right there)  
(multi-targeting if ship to ship)(spinal)

* * *

**Turn: 6 (Outsiders at large) | POV: Militarized Hab Ship _Normandy_ intelligence service | militarized Hab ship count: 200,000**

"As you can see here, a force of 700 Reapers were routed by the _Point of Contact_. This was achieved with the only losses on our side being the matter used to fuel the _Point_'s weaponry. In addition the Reapers in question were totally vaporized instead of the intended result of merely blowing them apart. This suggests that the amount of firepower needed to kill a Reaper was significantly overestimated."

"By the _Point of Contact_ are you referring to the bunch of lunatics who not only increased the size of their vessel to a sphere 600 km in diameter, but have plans to build it to the point of being a mobile planet almost the size of Earth?"

"Yes."

"I'm fairly certain that counts as a non-standard model."

"True, but it certainly proves our techbase has the ability to kill them."

"Certainly, but I doubt... there seem to be 80,000 Reapers diving towards each inhabited planet from above the galactic plane."

"This is true. Each GRAVDAR listening post is heavily armed enough that we should be able to inflict 99.8% casualties before they arrive at their destinations."

"A slight problem I noticed is that instead of decelerating, they seem to be _gaining_ velocity. This indicates that they are planning to either use themselves as KKVs or perform an FTL driveby."

"Affirmative, calculating again shows that we should be able to intercept 98% of the inbound weaponry."

"Lets do the best we can. Somehow I doubt anyone on a planet is going to get out of this alive."

"Still, let's do the best we can."

* * *

**Turn: 6 (Council) | Somewhere near Palaven**

It was sudden, with no real warning. Somewhere a few hundred light years away several Reapers fired several adaptive penetrators at Palaven at speeds approaching 3,000,000,000,000 c. Seconds later, the projectile disabled its onboard mass effect generator within 1 light second of Palaven reverting its mass to its unaltered 1 ton. The slug made a glancing hit in part of Palaven's unshielded wilderness and was no less lethal for it. With a total 64.5 zetatons of yield, where it hit wasn't terribly important. As the shot hit atmosphere, it flashed into super-heated plasma while barely slowing. This meant that in slow motion the shockwave it produced almost looked like someone was denting the atmosphere as the mass of plasma descended, growing ever larger. Then it hit the ground. The core of the plasmoid was still its most dense part, but instead of penetrating it instead bludgeoned.

Massive fault lines spread around the site of impact as the area that took a direct hit was _Pushed_. Insane amounts of matter were shoved not just down at an angle, but through and out of the planet at stellar escape velocity. The immediate, local results were a gash in the planet almost 4,000 km deep and 8,000 wide. This is ignoring the Richter 8,000 earthquakes that were shaking across the rest of the planet in addition to other disasters. One of these is the fact that gravity tends to pull things into a sphere, and Palaven was now nowhere near spherical. As the planet began to settle, its remaining habitable crust began to crack, spewing magma in vast geysers. This was ignoring the fact that a vast chunk of the planet's atmosphere had just been blown off, with the rest flowing into the gap at supersonic speeds.

That is what the results would have been had only a single projectile impacted. As it was, several thousand hit. This scene was repeated for every single inhabited planet the Reapers could find, with the only survivors being those who were on a spacecraft well away from any targeted planets at the time.

* * *

**Turn: 6 (Reapers) | Dark Space**

"It is a [shame] that the cycle in [harvested galaxy 000:000:001] could not come to fruition."

"True. The lesser beings have simply acquired too much firepower to be harvested. Total destruction will have to suffice."

"[I] have some [worrying] news for [you]."

"[please] elaborate."

"It seems that the artificial planetoid is not only mobile, as it was confirmed to dodge the KKVs deployed against it, but it is not the only asset the lesser beings have which is capable of harming [us]. This was confirmed by the extreme losses the [strike groups] sustained during the [attack runs] on the lesser being's worlds. Furthermore, it is distinctly possible that said assets can support a significant population."

"This is indeed worrying, [we] must divert additional assets to [harvested galaxy 000:000:001] to successfully end this cycle."


	12. Chapter 12

**IA IA disclaimer fhtagn!**

**Author's Note: **You chose to protect stuff. As the Outsiders don't believe in immobile assets, and also don't believe in making something that can't make killing it a Pyrrhic victory at best, that meant you are protecting/adopting what's left of the Council races. Brace for incoming feels.

* * *

**Turn: 7 (_Point of Contact_) | location unimportant | POV characters: Reaper hating! Saren, Grieving! Liara**

The _Overture _(best translation) had, until recently been a Dreadnought for the Asari Republics. Now that the Asari Republics no longer existed, this could not be the case. The power plants were still in pristine condition, but food was starting to run low. This was especially the case for the Dextro personnel who had come aboard from a Turian frigate that had been found drifting. Thus it was in these dreary surroundings that an immature Asari and a Special Forces Turian who had both just lost everyone they cared about sat down to commiserate.

The ice took a rather long time to break, but it finally happened when Saren asked "So, who did you lose?"

Liara's answer was "I lost my mother, my 'father' (best translation), all 3 of my siblings, my aunt, my cousins, and my neise. Everyone I knew before is dead, and there was nothing I could do about it."

Saren simply said "You aren't the only person who lost everyone. My brother Desolas had managed to climb pretty high up the ranks in Palaven's politics, he was there when the attack happened. Now the only reason I even bother to keep living is out of spite. I will watch those Reapers die screaming for mercy."

Liara then asked "What are we supposed to do now? There aren't any planets worth living on in our effective travel radius."

Saren sighed, before replying "We don't have many options, but there is one you failed to consider."

"What?"

"Tell me, who move around constantly, and can see this sort of attack coming?"

"The Outsiders, that's who. That still leaves the problem of actually finding them however."

"True, but recall their previous behavior. They have repeatedly helped those in bad situations for little to no compensation. It would not terribly surprise me if they were rescuing refugees."

"That still leaves the problem of actually finding them. Or getting found by them."

_Meanwhile, in the command center _

Captain Narelsne D'nala sighed as she considered her options. Threre were a grand total of zero colonies or even unclaimed garden worlds that were still intact where they had looked. That meant integrating into or starting a colony were not options. The _Overture_ also lacked any significant amount of agricultural or industrial equipment, which ruled out going 'space nomad'. Finding the Outsiders (if they even still existed) would lead to instantly alleviating their food concerns, but they had been notoriously hard to find even beforehand.

this meant that for the time being they would stretch their rations as long as they possibly could. At last count, that meant they had about 4 months at most before _no don't think about that don't think about that_. It was at this point that something _interesting_ happened. The _Overture's_ sensors were highlighting a region of space that had started to display gravitational lensing. This phenomenon was fairly well known to be caused by an inbound conduit or wormhole.

The wormhole theory was quickly confirmed as an Outsider Juggernaut exited the wormhole, before sending a radio transmission proclaiming "This wormhole is being kept stable enough for a return journey to the _Point of Contact_. It will be closed after you transit, and we will return using our own engines." Narelsne was absolutely ecstatic about the opportunity, and besides, if they went and it was a trap the result would merely be a faster version of what would happen if they didn't go through.

On the way to the wormhole however, she declared "An Outsider vessel has opened a wormhole to the Point of Contact!If it is in fact present, there will be a feast/celebration!"

**WAR MODE**

[] Go look for stuff to kill (requires intergalactic travel)  
[] protect stuff  
[] scout for additional resources/allies (requires intergalactic travel)  
[] stay in one place (as a side note, the Outsiders pretty much own the Milky Way galaxy at this point. Any Reapers who stick around don't tend to last terribly long. Even then they need to waste incredibly large numbers to make any meaningful penetration. Therefore bumming around the Milky way isn't terribly risky.)  
[] upgrade (next stop: 1,200 km spheroid)(will require 6 years)

**'Inventory'**

-Council races/Olma/Dir'et/Mirtan refgees

**Current 'recipe' for the _Point of_****_ Contact_  
**

Shape: spherical  
Diameter: 600 km

Mass: 226,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons  
Density: 2 tons/cubic meter

[5%] power plant/engine (singularity)  
[30%] fuel  
[4%] FTL drive (hybrid wormhole engine)(effective travel speed: 452,000,000,000,000,000 c AKA: "you see the edge of the visible universe 13 billion light years away? we can be there in 0.8 seconds.)  
[5%] heat management  
[15%] Hardened Space-time Armor (tanks 2.5 gigatons per cubic meter)  
[20%] Industry  
[15%] Habitation Space (includes computing and agriculture)(severely underpopulated)  
[1%] docking facilities for civilian craft  
[3%] military fleet  
(current load-out: 56,000,000 Juggernauts, 13,000,000,000 Direct Combat Units)  
[insignificant] sensors (GRAVDAR)(detection range of 12 light years)  
[2%] weapons (Updated to singularity-conversion lasers)(mass of weapons load: 4,520,000,000,000,000,000 tons)  
current load-out:(8,000,000,000,000) 40,000 ton singularity lasers (point defense)(yield: 247.25 gigatons)  
(100,000,000,000) 10,000,000 ton singularity lasers (energy delivered in TNT equivalent: 61.8 teratons)  
(2,000,000,000) 1,000,000,000 ton singularity lasers (energy delivered in TNT equivalent: 6.18 petatons)  
(1) 1,200,000,000,000,000,000 ton singularity laser (energy delivered in TNT equivalent: 7.4 Zetatons)(that's a Death Star right there)  
(multi-targeting if ship to ship)(spinal)(any Reapers in its cone of fire die instantly)(seriously, it could one-shot almost 1.5 million Reapers per volley, clocking out at killing 15,000 Reapers per second)

As a treat for you, I'll be including the stat blocks for the upgraded Outsider ships (including militarized hab ships)

**Scouts (discontinued due to combat ineffectiveness)  
****Mass: **4,000,000 tons  
**Length:** 100 meters  
**Diameter:** 50 meters  
**Density: **5 tons/cubic meter  
6% power plant/engine (singularity)  
40% fuel  
6% FTL drive (hybrid wormhole engine)(effective travel speed: 120,000 c/328.25 light years per day)  
8% heat management systems  
22% Hardened Space-time Armor (tanks 2.5 gigatons per cubic meter)  
1% computing/maintenance supplies  
1% GRAVDAR system (detection range: 8.64 light minutes)  
16% weapons (including conduit generators explicitly for this purpose only): (4) 40,000 ton singularity lasers (yield: 247.25 gigatons)  
(1) 480,000 ton singularity laser (yield: 2.967 teratons)

**Direct Combat Units  
****Mass:** 500,000,000 tons  
**Length: **800 meters  
**Diameter: **400 meters  
**Density: **5 tons/cubic meter  
4% power plant/engine (singularity)  
30% fuel  
4% FTL drive (hybrid wormhole engine)(effective travel speed: 100,000,000 c/3.169 light years per second)  
6% heat management systems  
30% Hardened Space-time Armor (tanks 2.5 gigatons per cubic meter)  
15% maintenance supplies (computing is an insignificant mass usage at this point)  
1% GRAVDAR system (detection range of 18 light years)  
10% weapons (including conduit generators explicitly for this purpose only)  
(125) 40,000 ton singularity lasers (yield: 247.25 gigatons)  
(20) 1,000,000 ton singularity lasers (yield: ~6.2 teratons)  
(1) 25,000,000 ton singularity laser (yield: 154.5 teratons)  
total volley firepower: 309.4 teratons (16 volleys required for Reaper kill)

**Juggernauts (2.0, includes extra size)  
****Mass: **60,400,000,000 tons  
**Length: **6 km  
**Diameter: **2 km  
**Density: **5 tons/cubic meter  
5% power plant/engine (singularity)  
32% fuel  
5% FTL drive (hybrid wormhole engine)(effective travel speed: 15,100,000,000 c/478.5 light years per second)  
5% heat management systems  
25% Hardened Space-time Armor (tanks 2.5 gigatons per cubic meter)  
10% maintenance supplies (computing is an insignificant mass usage at this point)  
2% GRAVDAR system (detection range of 0.5 light years)  
16% weapons (including conduit generators explicitly for this purpose only)  
(1) 6,040,000,000 ton singularity laser (yield: 37.3 petatons)(multi-targeting)(one-shots 7 Reapers per shot)  
(24) 100,000,000 ton singularity lasers (yield: 618.125 teratons)(8 shots required for Reaper kill)  
(30,200) 40,000 ton singularity lasers (point defense)(yield: 247.25 gigatons)

**Militarized Hab Ship  
Mass: **24,150,000,000,000,000 tons  
**Length: **240 km**  
Diameter: **80 km**  
Density: **5 tons per cubic meter  
5% power plant  
25% fuel  
5% FTL drive (hybrid wormhole engine)(effective travel speed: 6,037,500,000,000,000 c/191,316,830 light years per second)  
10% heat management systems  
20% Hardened Space-time Armor (tanks 2.5 gigatons per cubic meter)  
15% industry (can fabricate another Militarized Hab ship in 6 months)  
1% physical hab space  
4% computing (for SCIENCE!, actually processing the ludicrously huge amount of data the GRAVDAR collects, and carrying uploaded minds)  
2% GRAVDAR system (detection range: 198,357.3 light years)  
3% military fleet (4,000 Juggernaut 2.0s, 950,000 Direct Combat Units)  
10% weapons  
(1) 1,207,500,000,000,000 ton singularity laser (yield: 649 exatons)(multi-targeting)(kills 130,000 Reapers per shot/1,300 per second)(forwards-firing)  
(1,932) 500,000,000,000 ton singularity lasers (yield:3 exatons)(multi-targeting)(kills 618 Reapers per shot/6.18 per second)  
(~6,037,000,000) 40,000 ton singularity lasers (point defense)(yield: 247.25 gigatons)(~20,000 shots required for a Reaper kill)

**Listening/defense post  
Shape: **spherical  
**Diameter:** 80 km  
**Density: **5 tons per cubic meter  
**Mass:** 1,340,000,000,000,000 tons  
4% power plant/engine (singularity)  
16% fuel  
0.1% FTL drive (hybrid wormhole)(effective travel speed: 6,700,000,000,000 c/ 212,311 light years per second)(only really meant for dodging incoming KKVs)  
9.9% heat management systems  
10% HSA (tanks 2.5 gigatons per cubic meter)  
35% GRAVDAR system (detection range: 550,308 light years)  
20% computing (mostly for the GRAVDAR)  
3% maintenance supplies/industry  
1% docking for civilian craft  
1% weapon (singular) 13,400,000,000,000 ton singularity laser (yield: 82.8 exatons)(multi-targeting)(kills 16,500 Reapers per shot)(would take ~80 shots to blow up a planet)

**MHS factory  
Mass: **14,100,000,000,000,000 tons**  
Length: **1,250 km**  
Diameter: **120 km**  
Density: **1 ton per cubic meter (would float in water)  
2% power plant/engine (singularity)  
10% fuel  
3% heat management  
1% FTL drive (hybrid wormhole)(effective travel speed: 705,000,000,000,000 c/22,340,102 light years per second)  
4% HSA (tanks 2.5 gigatons per cubic meter)  
75% industry (can produce 1 Militarized Hab Ship or 5 Listening/defense posts per month, self-replicating takes 6 months)  
2% GRAVDAR system (detection range: 115,811 light years)  
2.5% computing (mostly for the GRAVDAR)  
0.5% weapons  
(352,500) 100,000,000 ton singularity lasers (yield: 618.125 teratons)(8 shots required for a Reaper kill)  
(881,250,000) 40,000 ton singularity lasers (point defense)(yield: 247.25 gigatons)(~20,000 shots required for a Reaper kill)

Now, if you were thinking the Outsiders had an almost-insurmountable quality advantage (especially for the bigger units) you'd be right. However the Reapers stomp all over the Outsiders in terms of quantity. What do I mean? Assuming that it takes 1,000,000 organics to make a Reaper and an average cycle produces 15,000,000,000,000 harvested organics per galaxy, each cycle produces 15,000,000 Reapers per galaxy. Assuming 3,000,000 Reapers are lost per cycle per galaxy, that is still 12,000,000 Reapers per cycle per galaxy. Just going linearly (assuming the Reapers have been around for 1,000,000,000 years) that would mean there were 240,000,000,000 Reapers in existence (pfft, easy prey). Now we get into the scary bit by assuming that with each cycle the Reapers multiply the number of galaxies under their influence by 3.  
Iteration 1:12,000,000 Reapers  
Iteration 2: 48,000,000 Reapers

This pattern continues such that by the time we get to the present, when I try to get the number of Reapers in existence from my computer's calculator function I simply get an overflow error. Before I've even gotten past step 2 in calculating it. The number of _galaxies_ under the reaper's control can only be expressed in the following scientific notation:  
2.6e+9542

Suffice it to say, the Outsiders have their work cut out for them. Worth noting is that I assumed the Reapers have the ability to synthesize eezo, as that would otherwise be a major limiter on how big they could get.

* * *

**Turn: 7 (Outsiders in general) | location classified | Fleet Strength: 425,000 Militarized Hab Ships, 2,025,000 listening/defense posts,  
30,000 MHS factories, ludicrous numbers of everything smaller, 1 unique asset 'Point of Contact'**

"The Reapers hit everywhere really hard. At least everywhere that couldn't dodge. Given our general policy about non-mobile assets we escaped pretty much unscathed. On the flip side, we destroyed 2.3 million Reapers during that engagement while they were passing through the galactic plane. As far as we can tell, the Reaper version of FTL sensing requires that they already know vaguely where to look. This is relevant due to the remaining 300,000 Reapers from the attack grouping up below the galactic plane. I highly recommend that we send a task force of 300,000 Juggernauts and 12,000,000 Direct Combat Units to ambush the surviving Reapers and hopefully wipe them out."

"I'd rather send a few Militarized hab ships, we know for a fact those would wipe them out with zero issues. Though there is the problem of Hab Ships being a lot less... expendable than our smaller vessels."

"True. I shall authorize the additional deployment of a single Militarized Hab Ship"

**~Reaper Attack Group: destroyed Losses: zero ships, several thousand tons of matter converted to energy~  
**

* * *

**Turn: 7 (Reapers) | location unknown**

"It seems that our attack has left a significant number of [Milky Way galaxy]'s [lesser beings] alive. This was confirmed by them [exterminating] the remainders of the attack group sent to [exterminate] them."

"[They] are proving troublesome, especially due to [their] usage of [energy weaponry]."

"Indeed, [I] recommend the deployment of 30,000,000,000,000 [Reapers]. This should prove sufficient to [squash] them."

"[Agreed]. All in [favor]?"

_vote carried by 62%_


	13. Chapter 13

**IA IA disclaimer fhtagn!**

**Author's Note:** This chapter will not be following the conventional vote structure for a very good reason. This reason is the 30,000,000,000,000 strong swarm of Reapers about to hit the Milky Way.

* * *

At 550,000 light years was where the incoming swarm of Reapers were first spotted. Assuming that they would make a KKV attack at their current speed of 8,000,000,000,000 c, there were only a few seconds to respond. With how fast the Outsiders processed information, it was decided that the Reapers were to be fired upon once in range by all assets presently turned to face them. That was 200,000 listening/defense posts which would alert the Reapers to their location and be almost certainly lost. The same went for the 40,000 militarized hab ships which would be engaging. The point of this was a ruse, trying to convince the Reapers that they were fighting to their very best capabilities when they were deliberately staying under the FTL radar. The shots were fired, and 32,300,000,000 Reapers died. That wasn't even a percent of their number.

As expected, the Reapers fired KKVs, destroying roughly 80% of the assets which had been used to attack them. As it turned out however, several of the hab ships involved had used a clever trick to survive. They spotted the incoming attacks before they hit, and tossed a hastily produced wormhole in front of the incoming shots, harmlessly redirecting them into empty space. Now that the Reapers were on their way out of the galaxy, the full might of the Outsiders could be brought to bear.

The Outsiders did not normally use spatial disruption weapons directly, for the simple reason that HSA tended to render them worthless. However, the Reapers did not possess HSA. They could not use lasers in this situation as the Reapers were moving away from them at speeds greater than c, but they could make use of a particular quirk of the conduit system. Namely, if you tried to enter a Conduit's entry point from the wrong direction, it would be almost like forcing yourself onto a nearly indestructible monoatomic spike. The Reapers were currently flying away from the sources that would be generating the conduits in question at 8,000,000,000,000 c. This meant that they would be providing most of the momentum for their own demise.

All 385,000 remaining militarized hab ships deployed the conduit generators on their weapons on the outbound Reapers. With point defense alone, that would have violently impaled every single one multiple times. However the Outsiders felt like being overzealous, and also used their secondary batteries. Each weapon in said batteries were designed to split their beams down to individual teratons if need be. This means that when being used in the way they were now they could each generate roughly 3,000,000 "spikes" per shot. Therefore the Reapers were extremely surprised to suddenly have not only have several million holes slammed through them at a decent chunk of their internal c each, but each 'spike' also shoved the matter it went through aside at said decent fraction of their internal c. There were no survivors in the Reaper's attack group.

* * *

some time later (Militarized Hab Ship _Normandy_) (385,000 Militarized Hab Ships, 1,800,000 Listening/Defense Posts, 30,000 MHS factories, lots of smaller stuff, unique asset _Point of Contact_)(production for next 6 months: 475,000 MHS, 450,000 Listening/defense posts, 7,500 MHS factories)

Hannah Shepard sighed, looking over to the somewhat desensitized (but thoroughly weirded-out) Javik and the rest of her command crew. Then, she spoke "It has become quite clear that we cannot remain within the Milky Way galaxy if we wish to triumph over the Reapers. They know where we are by now and if we remain where we are we will be continuously attacked with ever-increasing numbers until there's nothing left of us. Therefore I am issuing an executive order to relocate to another galaxy, preferably nowhere near our local group. Any suggestions?"

Javik glanced up and answered with "Yes, I advise we avoid making contact with any of the locals, especially if a Relay network is present. My reasoning is that the locals are likely being monitored by the Reapers, making contact with the locals would therefore alert the Reapers to our location. This is even more assured if a Relay network is present, as those are active Reaper-tech which will _definitely_ be monitored."

At this point a vote was called among the members of the Strategic Leadership Administration for whether to stay or go. the answer was 32,000 in favor, 6,500 against.

**NEW LOCATION: Ursa Major galactic supercluster, Abell cluster 1377, NGC 3888 (Note: I couldn't find the actual size of the place, so I'm going to fudge it by saying it's 135,000 light years in diameter)**

**Options (multiple **[]**s mean that action takes multiple turns) current turn length: 6 months)**

**Category: locals**  
[][] Observe locals (open contact is BANNED)(opens OC alien submissions, must be in codex entry or character sheet format*)  
-[][][][][][] Infiltrate locals (locked, requires observe locals first)  
=[][][][][][] manipulate locals (locked, requires infiltrate locals first)(define what you're manipulating them into first)  
-[][] leave 'precursor artifacts' for the locals to find (locked, requires observe locals first)(potential of being discovered)  
=[][][][] enhance local techbase (locked, requires leave 'precursor artifacts' first)

**Category: SCIENCE!  
**[][][][](out of 4+1d4) begin research: eezo synthesis (possible uses: reactor efficiency boost, violation of thermodynamics, better lasers)  
[][][][][][](out of 6+1d12) begin research: n-dimensional space-time manipulation (possible uses: even faster FTL, time shenanigans, interdimensional BS)  
[][][](out of 3+1d6) begin research: mental enhancement (possible uses: faster research, 'advice box' AKA me giving you hints on what are good/bad ideas)  
[][] develop a dedicated spatial disruption weapon (good for ganking Reapers in ludicrous numbers, unless they manage to steal some HSA)

**Category: upgrades  
**[][][][][][] make the Point of Contact bigger (1,200 km diameter)  
[] upgrade sensors to regular Hab Ship standards  
[] (per 5%) adjust the Point of Contact's mass percentages  
[][][][] switch to purely virtual hab space, increase density of ship to 5 tons/cubic meter, increase performance of all other systems by 2.5 times

**'Inventory'**

-Council races/Olma/Dir'et/Mirtan refgees

**Current 'recipe' for the _Point of_****_ Contact_  
**

Shape: spherical  
Diameter: 600 km

Mass: 226,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons  
Density: 2 tons/cubic meter

[5%] power plant/engine (singularity)  
[30%] fuel  
[4%] FTL drive (hybrid wormhole engine)(effective travel speed: 452,000,000,000,000,000 c AKA: "you see the edge of the visible universe 13 billion light years away? we can be there in 0.8 seconds.)  
[5%] heat management  
[15%] Hardened Space-time Armor (tanks 2.5 gigatons per cubic meter)  
[20%] Industry  
[15%] Habitation Space (includes computing and agriculture)(severely underpopulated)  
[1%] docking facilities for civilian craft  
[3%] military fleet  
(current load-out: 56,000,000 Juggernauts, 13,000,000,000 Direct Combat Units)  
[insignificant] sensors (GRAVDAR)(detection range of 12 light years)  
[2%] weapons (Updated to singularity-conversion lasers)(mass of weapons load: 4,520,000,000,000,000,000 tons)  
current load-out:(8,000,000,000,000) 40,000 ton singularity lasers (point defense)(yield: 247.25 gigatons)  
(100,000,000,000) 10,000,000 ton singularity lasers (energy delivered in TNT equivalent: 61.8 teratons)  
(2,000,000,000) 1,000,000,000 ton singularity lasers (energy delivered in TNT equivalent: 6.18 petatons)  
(1) 1,200,000,000,000,000,000 ton singularity laser (energy delivered in TNT equivalent: 7.4 Zetatons)(that's a Death Star right there)  
(multi-targeting if ship to ship)(spinal)(any Reapers in its cone of fire die instantly)(seriously, it could one-shot almost 1.5 million Reapers per volley, clocking out at killing 15,000 Reapers per second)

*rules for OC alien submissions  
-may have up to 2 'special' branches of the tech tree open to them besides Over Analysis-verse mass effect baseline with each rated from 1-6, though there are only 6 points to distribute (Outsiders: Self-Modification 3, Mass/Energy Conversion 4, Spatial Manipulation 6) alternatively, you could dump those points into the baseline chunks of the tech tree, which start at: Mass Alteration 2, Medical 3, Automation 3, mass/energy conversion 1(fusion). Please be aware that certain branches of the tech tree (such as Time Shenanigans) may require another branch to be at 6 (for Time Shenanigans, that's Spatial Manipulation)  
Please bear in mind that the Outsiders only have 3 because they assimilated another species (namely the Virtual Aliens). That bit of backstory can be a cultural trait.

-may have up to 3 cultural traits that provide a bonus and a flaw each (Outsiders: Who Needs Eezo? [ignores eezo constraints for projects, disallows perpetual energy or tiers 5&amp;6 of Mass/Energy Conversion], Mobile Homes [can move 'colonies' like ships, may actually live on ships, each 'colony' has less room to expand] and Off The Grid [not dependent on the Relay network to travel, cannot be easily tracked by the Reapers, slower travel if spatial manipulation or mass alteration is below 5]) bear in mind that Off The Grid means that the Outsiders might eventually make actual contact with them, provided they are not already in contact with someone _on_ the Relay network.

-may have up to 2 biological perks, though if the aliens in question have sufficient self-modification or are robots (cultural trait) the answer quickly becomes "whatever the body they're currently wearing was built with"


End file.
